Ion Implantation

Introduction to Ion Implantation:

Ion implantation is a process by which energetic impurity atoms can be introduced
into a single crystal substrate in order to change its electronic properties. Ion
Implantation is an alternative to deposition diffusion and is used to produce a
shallow surface region of dopant atoms deposited into a silicon wafer. Ion
implantation is used mostly for doping of silicon in VLSI processing.
Ion implantation provides a technique by which the dose of implanted dopants can
be precisely controlled. In ion implantation, an ion beam is accelerated towards the
target with an energy typically greater than 50 eV. Ion implantation is a low-
temperature process by which ions of one element are accelerated into a solid target,
thereby changing the physical, chemical, or electrical properties of the target.Ion
implantation is used in semiconductor device fabrication and in metal finishing, as
well as in materials science research.
The ions can alter the elemental composition of the target (if the ions differ in
composition from the target) if they stop and remain in the target. Ion implantation
also causes chemical and physical changes when the ions impinge on the target at
high energy. The crystal structure of the target can be damaged or even destroyed by
the energetic collision cascades, and ions of sufficiently high energy (10s of MeV)
can cause nuclear transmutation.

Ion Implantation Process:

Ion implatation is the process of introducing energetic charged particle of the dopant
in a semiconductor substrate in very low temparature. There are many steps of
working of ion implantation which is discussed below with neat diagram.
Ion implantation System:
A gas containing the desired impurity is ionized within the ion source. The ions are
generated and repelled from their source in a diverging beam that is focussed before
if passes through a mass separator that directs only the ions of the desired species
through a narrow aperture. A second lens focuses this resolved beam which then
passes through an accelerator that brings the ions to their required energy before they
strike the target and become implanted in the exposed areas of the silicon wafers.
A typical ion-implantation system is shown in the figure below.

Fig-01: Schematic diagram of typical ion implanter.

The accelerating voltages may be from 20 kV to as much as 250 kV. In some ion
implanters, the mass separation occurs after the ions are accelerated to high energy.
Because the ion beam is small, means are provided for scanning it uniformly across
the wafers. For this purpose the focussed ion beam is scanned electrostatically over
the surface of the wafer in the target chamber.Repetitive scanning in a raster pattern
provides exceptionally uniform doping of the wafer surface. The target chamber
commonly includes automatic wafer handling facilities to speed up the process of
implanting many wafers per hour.
Description of ion Implantation component:
There are several component of ion implantation system including ion source, mass
analyzer, accelerator, beam scanner and target chamber or end station.
1. Ion-source:
The ion source contains the ionized dopant atoms. The most commonly used dopant
atoms are B2H6, PH3,AsH3 and BF3.The dopant source gas is exposed to high
energy electrons and break up the molecules to form a individual atoms of desired
species. Gaseous materials are more preferred over solid materials since they do not
need vaporization chamber. Ion source is shown in fig-01.
2. Mass analyzer:
The ion pass through a mass seperating analyzer magnet called mass analyzer.
Magnetic field is so adjusted that only the desired ion will pass through slit and other
will be rejected. The mass separation technique allows handling variety of dopants
in a single machine with freedom from contamination with each other. Most
commonly employed technique uses a homogeneous field magnetic analyzer.
3. Accelerator:
After the ion are seperated out by the mass analyzer, then they are accelerated to
achieve the desired energy to penetrate the substrate to desired path. The accelerating
voltage may be from 20 kv to 250 kv. High energy is given to ion beams by passing
them through a long column containing biased, annular, ring electrodes.These
electrodes establish accelerating potential. Output end of column should be at ground
potential for safety. The beam energy determines projected range of ion.
4. Beam Scanner:
The beam scanner basically consists of two pair of deflection plates, one pair for the
X-axis and one pair for the Y-axis. Therefore, it is used to define whether the beam
hits the target chamber horizontally or vertically.
5. Target Chamber:
The target chamber commonly includes automatic wafer handling facilities to speed
up the process of implating many wafer per hour.

Mechanism of Ion implantation:

The mechanism of ion implantation includes the ion stopping, projection range,
distribution range, implantation damage, annealing and channeling.
1. Ion Stopping:
If the implanted ion inters the target chamber, it undergoes series of collisions with
target atoms and losses energy until it finally comes to rest at some depth.There are
two kinds of ion stopping such as,
Nuclear stopping: It is caused by collisions between two atoms.
Electronic stopping: It is caused by interaction with the electrons of the targets.
2. Projection Range:
As the implanted ion enters the target, the total distance which an ion travels in
coming to rest is called its range (R). The projection of R along the axis of incidence
is called the projection range.
3. Implantation Damage:
As the implanted ion enters the target, it undergoes a series of nuclear collisions.Each
time ions is scattered, a fraction of energy is transfered to a target atoms which is
displaced from its original positions. So, the ion as well as displaced target atom
travel inside the target and cause further displacement and this process goes on and
on until the energy becomes too small and this process stops. So, one ion can displace
many atoms from their position through nuclear scattering. Thus, when many ions
are implanted the crystalline target will be in a highly disordered state.This is called
implantation damage.
4. Annealing after Implantation:
After the ions have been implanted they are lodged principally in interstitial
positions in the silicon crystal structure, and the surface region into which the
implantation has taken place will be heavily damaged by the impact of the high-
energy ions. The disarray of silicon atoms in the surface region is often to the extent
that this region is no longer crystalline in structure, but rather amorphous. To restore
this surface region back to a well-ordered crystalline state and to allow the implanted
ions to go into substitutional sites in the crystal structure, the wafer must be subjected
to an annealing process. The annealing process usually involves the heating of the
wafers to some elevated temperature often in the range of 1000°C for a suitable
length of time such as 30 minutes. Laser beam and electron-beam annealing are also
employed. In such annealing techniques only the surface region of the wafer is
heated and re-crystallized.
An ion implantation process is often followed by a conventional-type drive-in
diffusion, in which case the annealing process will occur as part of the drive-in
diffusion.Ion implantation is a substantially more expensive process than
conventional deposition diffusion, both in terms of the cost of the equipment and the
throughput, it does, however, offer following advantages.
5. Channeling:
Many crystalline targets with regular arrangement of atoms have atom rows or plane
the line up soi that there are long range open spaces through which the ions can travel
without significant scattering. So, the ions are steered theough these channels and
extend the ion distribution deeper into the target.

Advantages of Ion implantation:

1. Very precise control of the dose.
2. Independent control of impurity depth and dose.
3. Very fast (1 12" wafer can take as little as 25 seconds for a moderate dose).
4. Can perform retrograde profiles that peak at points inside the wafer.
5. Complex profiles can be achieved by multi-energy implants.
6. Ion implantation is low temperature process.
7. It is not so harmful for si wafer because of low temperature process.

Disadvantages of Ion Implantation:

1. Very deep and very shallow profiles are difficult.
2. Not all the damage can be corrected by post-implant annealing.
3.Typically has higher impurity content than does diffusion.
4.Often uses extremely toxic gas sources such as arsine (AsH3), and phosphine
(PH3).
5.Expensive.