Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2011
The annihilation of thermal donors in silicon by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) has been studied with deep-level transient spectroscopy. The electron trap AO (Ec – 0.13 eV) observed after heat treatment at 450 °C for 10 h, which is identified with the thermal donor, disappears by RTA at 800 °C for 10 s. However, four electron traps, A1 (Ec 0.18 eV), A2 (Ec – 0.25 eV), A3 (Ec – 0.36 eV), and A4 (Ec – 0.52 eV), with the concentration of ∼1012 cm−3 are produced after annihilation of thermal donors by RTA. These traps are also observed in silicon which receives only RTA at 800 °C. This indicates that traps A1–A4 are thermal stress induced or quenched-in defects by RTA, not secondary defects resulting from annealing of thermal donors.