Silicon-carbon formed using cluster-carbon implant and laser-induced epitaxy for application as source/drain stressors in strained n-channel MOSFETs

Abstract

Supersaturated and metastable silicon-carbon (Si:C) source/drain (S/D) stressors produced by laser anneal allow strain engineering for device performance enhancement. We report the use of a cluster-carbon (C 7H7 +) implant and pulsed excimer laser-induced epitaxial crystallization technique to form embedded Si:C S/D stressors with substitutional carbon concentration Csub of ∼1.1%. Transmission electron microscopy, secondary-ion mass spectrometry, and high resolution X-ray diffraction is used to characterize the structure and composition. n-field effect transistors (FETs) integrated with embedded Si:C S/D stressors formed using the C7H7 + implant and pulsed laser anneal technique demonstrate improvement in Ioff-IDSAT performance of ∼16% over control n-FETs formed without carbon implant at an Ioff=1 × 10-7 Aμm. Cluster-Carbon implant and laser anneal presented in this work is a simple and cost-effective approach to boost IDSAT performance and is a promising option for strain-engineering in advanced technology nodes. © 2009 The Electrochemical Society.