Electrical activation and electron spin resonance measurements of arsenic implanted in silicon

The electrical activation of arsenic (As) implanted in Si is investigated with electron spin resonance (ESR), spreading resistance (SR), and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). The As ions were implanted with a dose of 1 × 1012 cm−2 and subsequently annealed at various temperatures in the range of 500–1100 °C. The ESR measurements at 10 K show that the density of the As donor electrons for all the annealing temperatures is less than 10% of the As atom concentration measured by SIMS. The SR data indicate that the density of conduction band electrons is several times larger than that of the As donor electrons. These results strongly suggest that most of the As donor electrons are ESR inactive at low temperatures.