Large area electron beam annealing

We have achieved wide area (38 cm2) electron beam annealing of ion implanted silicon wafers using a glow discharge electron beam with electron energies between 3 and 7 keV. A continuous beam 7 cm in diameter with a power density up 90 W/cm2 was used to anneal the 7-cm-diam central portion of boron-implanted (30 keV, 5×1015 atoms/cm2) n-type 〈100〉 silicon wafers 10 cm in diameter. Annealing was obtained without redistribution of the original dopant profile using a 15-selectron beam exposure. Due to the high electron beam power density achieved over a large area, one can uniformly anneal an entire wafer in a single exposure without sample or beam scanning.