Experimental measurement of in-depth secondary defects distribution produced by helium implantation in silicon

The effect of lifetime engineering processes on the electrical behaviour of electronic devices is related to the stable defects concentration that establishes in the semiconductor material. The modelling of such processes is complicate because the mechanisms leading from primary defects (the ones directly created by the process) to secondary ones (arising from the interactions between primary defects themselves and between primary defects and other impurities present in the material) depend, in an unpredictable way, on the microscopic structure of each particular material. In this paper we present an experimental study showing the distribution of secondary defects created by an helium implantation process. The defects are characterised in terms of energy levels, effectiveness, and concentration. A comparison with the distribution predicted by the TRIM code is also given. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.