Ion beam modification for advanced semiconductor materials

Ion implantation followed by thermal annealing is a well-established method to dope semiconductors, e.g. Si and Ge. This approach has been maturely integrated with the integrated circuit (IC) industry production line for area- and depth-selective n/p doping as well as for lifetime engineering [1]. As a national lab in Germany, our center is running an Ion Beam Center for materials research [2]. It is open free to the international community for fundamental research based on a proposal system. Within the research department “Semiconductor Materials”, we are running unique annealing methods, including millisecond flash lamp annealing and nanosecond pulsed laser melting, to repair the ion beam induced damage and to activate the dopants [3, 4]. I will show diverse research examples by using ion beam to modify semiconductor materials. They include pushing the doping limits in semiconductors well above the solubility limits [5-7], functionalizing 2D materials [8] and creating color centers for quantum technologies [9, 10].

[1] Ye Yuan, S. Zhou and X. Wang, Modulating properties by light ion irradiation: From novel functional materials to semiconductor power devices, J. Semicond. 43 063101 (2022).
[2] https://www.hzdr.de/db/Cms?pNid=1984
[3] S. Zhou, Dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors prepared by the combination of ion implantation with pulse laser melting, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48, 263001 (2015) (Topical Review)
[4] L. Rebohle, S. Prucnal, Y. Berencén, V. Begeza, S. Zhou, A snapshot review on flash lamp annealing of semiconductor materials, MRS Advances 7, 1301–1309 (2022)
[5] M. Wang et al, Breaking the doping limit in silicon by deep impurities, Phys. Rev. Appl. 11, 054039 (2019)
[6] S. Prucnal, et al., Dissolution of donor-vacancy clusters in heavily doped n-type germanium, New J. Phys. 22, 123036 (2020)
[7] M. Hoesch, Active sites of Te-hyperdoped silicon by hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Appl. Phys. Lett. 122, 252108 (2023)
[8] F. Long, Ferromagnetic interlayer coupling in CrSBr crystals irradiated by ions, arXiv:2305.18791 (2023)
[9] C. Kasper, et al, Influence of irradiation on defect spin coherence in silicon carbide, Phys. Rev. Appl. 13, 044054 (2020)
[10] Z. Shang, et al, Microwave-assisted spectroscopy of vacancy-related spin centers in hexagonal SiC, Phys. Rev. Appl. 15, 034059 (2021)