Subsecond thermal processing for nanostructured semiconductors

This talk reviews the advances that subsecond thermal processing in the millisecond range using xenon-filled flash lamps (FLA) brings to the processing of advanced semiconductor materials, thus enabling the fabrication of novel electronic structures and materials. It will be demonstrated how such developments can translate into important practical applications via doping and/or defect engineering. A recent state-of-the-art is published in Ref./1/.
An important issue of our present work is the liquid phase processing in the millisecond range at the surface of solid substrates. A recent example is the controlled formation of III-V nanocrystals (InAs, GaAs) in silicon nanowires after ion beam synthesis /2/. We prepared coarse grained dendritic crystal structures in thin silicon films on silicon dioxide to show that the addition of carbon prevents the agglomeration of the molten silicon films and largely influences the crystallisation process /3/. We could demonstrate that germanium and silicon exhibit superconductivity at ambient pressure and temperatures in the range of 1-2 K by avoiding Ga clusters after ion implantation and FLA /4/. Regarding photovoltaic applications, we dealt with the ion beam doping and thermal processing of PV silicon demonstrating a distinct improvement of the minority carrier diffusion length compared to rapid thermal processing and furnace treatments /5/. Moreover, we engineered the hydrogen content in photovoltaic silicon in correlation to the phosphorus doping using plasma immersion ion implantation and FLA /6/. Also, we demonstrated FLA driven phosphorus in-diffusion from a surface source /7/.

/1/ W. Skorupa and H. Schmidt: “Subsecond annealing of advanced materials”, Springer Series in Materials Science 192 (2014), ISBN 978-3-319-03131-6.
/2/ S.Prucnal,…,W.Skorupa et al.: “III–V semiconductor nanocrystal formation in silicon nanowires via liquid-phase epitaxy”, Nano Research 7, 1769 (2014); (see also Nano Lett. 11, 2814 (2011)).
/3/ M.Voelskow,…,W.Skorupa et al.: “Formation of dendritic crystal structures in thin silicon films on silicon dioxide by carbon ion implantation and high intensity large area flash lamp irradiation”, J. Cryst. Growth, 388, 70 (2014)
/4/ V.Heera,…,W.Skorupa et al.: “Depth-resolved transport measurements and atom-probe tomography of heterogeneous, superconducting Ge:Ga films”, Supercond.Sc.&Technol. 27, 055025 (2014).
/5/ S.Prucnal,…,W.Skorupa et al.: “Millisecond annealing for advanced doping of dirty-silicon solar cells”, J. Appl. Phys. 111, 123104 (2012).
/6/ F.L. Bregolin,…,W.Skorupa et al.:“Hydrogen engineering via plasma immersion ion implantation and flash lamp annealing in silicon-based solar cell substrates”, J. Appl. Phys. 115, 064505 (2014).
/7/ H.B. Normann,…,W.Skorupa et al.: “Phosphorus in-diffusion from a surface source by millisecond flash lamp annealing for shallow emitter solar cells”, Appl.Phys.Lett. 102, 132108 (2014).