I n s i t u substrate-surface cleaning for very low temperature silicon epitaxy by low-kinetic-energy particle bombardment

A very low temperature in situ substrate-surface cleaning process utilizing low-kinetic-energy particle bombardment has been developed. Dramatic improvements have been achieved in the crystallinity of epitaxial silicon films grown by the newly developed low-kinetic-energy particle process, in which argon ions having precisely controlled energies are continuously bombarding the film surface during the entire growth operation. With the optimized substrate-surface cleaning conditions, in which the contaminants on the surface of silicon substrates are removed without introducing any damages to the substrates, the epitaxial silicon layer with a perfect crystallinity has been obtained at such very low temperatures below 350 °C.