Flash Lamp Annealing vs Rapid Thermal and Furnace Annealing for Optimized Metal-Oxide-Silicon-Based Light-Emitting Diodes

Conventional annealing processes such as furnace annealing (FA) and rapid thermal annealing (RTA) are compared to the more advanced technique of flash lamp annealing (FLA) regarding the electroluminescence (EL) efficiency, electrical stability, defect formation, and rare-earth nanocluster (RE-nc) creation in metal-oxide-silicon-based light-emitting diodes with Gd implanted SiO2 layers. We observed strong correlation between the electroluminescence efficiency, the nanocluster size, and the annealing technique for Gd implanted oxides. The increase of the annealing temperature and time leads to an increase of the RE-nc size and decreases the EL efficiency. Therefore, short-pulse high-temperature annealing (FLA) has a large advantage over the different annealing techniques (FA and RTA) from the point of view of stable and efficient metal oxide semiconductor light emitters.