Influence of carbon incorporation on dopant surface segregation in molecular-beam epitaxial growth of silicon

We describe the effect of carbon incorporation into Si on dopant surface segregation during molecular-beam epitaxial growth. Low concentration of carbon can significantly reduce the surface segregation of boron and phosphorus. Combining the surface diffusion model with a two-state exchange process, we are able to model the experimental results over the whole temperature range between 350 and 800 °C. Each exchange process alone is not sufficient to describe surface segregation at all investigated temperatures. Our results show that the presence of carbon lowers the energy difference for boron in subsurface and surface states. The energy barriers for surface diffusion as well as for the two-state exchange process are not affected by carbon.