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IOP PUBLISHING NANOTECHNOLOGY Nanotechnology 20 (2009) 165706 (7pp) doi:10.1088/0957-4484/20/16/165706 Ex situ n and p doping of vertical epitaxial short silicon nanowires by ion implantation Pratyush Das Kanungo1,3, Reinhard Kögler2 , Kien Nguyen-Duc1, Nikolai Zakharov1 , Peter Werner1 and Ulrich Gösele1 1 2 Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Weinberg 2, 06120 Halle, Germany Forschungszentrum Dresden—Rossendorf, FWIM, 01314 Dresden, Germany E-mail: [email protected] Received 9 November 2008, in final form 2 January 2009 Published 1 April 2009 Online at stacks.iop.org/Nano/20/165706 Abstract Vertical epitaxial short (200–300 nm long) silicon nanowires (Si NWs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si(111) substrates were separately doped p- and n-type ex situ by implanting with B, P and As ions respectively at room temperature. Multi-energy implantations were used for each case, with fluences of the order of 1013 –1014 cm−2 , and the NWs were subsequently annealed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA). Transmission electron microscopy showed no residual defect in the volume of the NWs. Electrical measurements of single NWs with a Pt/Ir tip inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM) showed significant increase of electrical conductivity of the implanted NWs compared to that of a nominally undoped NW. The p-type, i.e. B-implanted, NWs showed the conductivity expected from the intended doping level. However, the n-type NWs, i.e. P- and As-implanted ones, showed one to two orders of magnitude lower conductivity. We think that a stronger surface depletion is mainly responsible for this behavior of the n-type NWs. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) In order to meet the ever increasing demand for miniaturization of microelectronic devices and circuits, the use of silicon nanowires (Si NWs) can offer an alternative scaling down approach [1, 2]. Because of their quasi-one-dimensional structure and possibilities of quantum confinement [3], Si NWs have been widely investigated as prototype devices for many future applications [4–6]. However, in order to integrate them with the existing ultra-large scale integration (ULSI) technology, it is essential to demonstrate that they are compatible with the current semiconductor processing steps. One of the most important steps in the fabrication of planar silicon devices and circuits is doping by implantation with ions of group III and V elements [7, 8] in specific areas of the devices known as the ‘active regions’, where the transport as well as recombination and generation of the charge carriers take place. So far, doping of Si NWs has mostly been done in situ [9–11] by incorporating the dopant species in the gas phase along with Si during NW growth. Although prototype devices have been fabricated with in situ doped NWs [11, 12] they have often encountered two problems. Firstly, an amorphization of the NW structures was observed [10] on doping them with B from the diborane (B2 H6 ) gas. As a result, instead of a homogeneously doped crystalline NW a ‘p-type amorphous shell–intrinsic crystalline core’ kind of structure was formed, which is undesirable for most of the microelectronics applications. Secondly, an interdiffusion of the dopant species between differently doped segments in an NW has often deformed the ideal axial p– n junction and introduced unwanted lateral junctions [13]. This inter-diffusion and transition region between p- and ntype segments in an NW has been theoretically modeled and fitted to experimental data elsewhere [14]. Doping by ion implantation on the other hand can vertically confine the dopants within their stopping ranges, which are determined by the implantation energy and dose. It is possible that the NWs are amorphized during implantation. However, by a suitable 3 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. 0957-4484/09/165706+07$30.00 1 © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK Nanotechnology 20 (2009) 165706 P D Kanungo et al Figure 1. (a) SEM image of as-grown vertical NWs. (b) Cross sectional transmission electron microscope (TEM) image of an as-grown NW. (c) A NW with the Au cap removed before implantation. 3 × 1018 cm−3 of B was grown prior to the Au deposition at 525 ◦ C. This was a necessary step to grow Si NWs for all the p-type wafers, as the wafer surface plays a more critical role for MBE [17, 18] than the other VLS growth techniques. A buffer layer offers a cleaner Si(111)-7 × 7 surface than the original wafer surface. We observed that for the p-type wafers introduction of the buffer layer drastically improves the density of the NWs as compared to the n-type ones. After the Au deposition, about 270 nm of Si was evaporated, that resulted in the simultaneous growth of the NWs as well as an epitaxial Si layer underneath and surrounding them as reported earlier [17, 18]. A SEM image of a cluster of the as-grown NWs is shown in figure 1(a). Statistics on such as-grown NWs of each type showed that the average NW length was around 320 nm and the diameter around 150 nm. The dark hemispherical objects on the top of the NWs in figure 1(a) are the Au droplets that initiated the NW growth. Previous investigations by transmission electron microscopy revealed [17, 18] a singlecrystalline structure of the NWs oriented along the 111 direction. A cross-sectional TEM image of an as-grown NW is shown in figure 1(b). It can be seen in figure 1(b) that in addition to the dark Au cap on top, a decoration of dark spots is also visible on the surface of the NW. These were reported as Au nanoparticles earlier [17, 18] and are characteristics of Si NWs grown by the vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) mechanism. Because of its heavy mass compared to the implanted species (B, P and As), the Au droplet at the tip of the NW can act as an effective ion-stopper, resulting in lower penetration of the implanted ions into the NW volume than expected. Besides, subsequent annealing process they can be well recrystallized. Very recently Colli et al [15] have shown that P and B implantation on horizontally laid down Si NWs with a dose as high as 1015 cm−2 does not lead to a high degree of structural defects in the NWs. In this paper we demonstrate that short vertical Si NWs grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on Si(111) substrates can be doped with B, P and As by multiple energy/dose ion implantations with the highest dose of the order of 1014 cm−2 to achieve homogeneous carrier concentrations or flat concentration profiles along the lengths of the NWs. We investigated both the structural and the electrical properties of the implanted NWs. The electrical conductivities of the implanted NWs were significantly higher than the MBEgrown, nominally undoped NWs reported earlier [16] in the measured voltage range. The growth of nominally undoped Si NWs by MBE was reported earlier [17, 18] by us. In the present work we have used the previously grown nominally undoped NWs to perform the ion implantation. In order to avoid any unwanted electrical junction between the NWs and the substrates, we used p-type wafers (resistivity 5–10 cm) for the NWs implanted with B, and n-type wafers (resistivity 0.001–0.006 cm) for the NWs implanted with P and As respectively. In brief, RCAcleaned 5 Si(111) wafers were annealed at 870 ◦ C inside an ultra-high vacuum (10−10 mb) MBE chamber to get rid of the native oxide. Immediately afterward 1–2 nm Au was deposited in situ at 525 ◦ C, that subsequently broke into droplets acting as the growth initiator of the Si NWs. For the NWs prepared for B implantation, a 200 nm thick Si buffer layer doped with 2 Nanotechnology 20 (2009) 165706 P D Kanungo et al Figure 2. Implantation schemes for the vertical Si NWs. (a) An intrinsic Si NW grown on p-type Si(111) wafer and B doped (p-type) buffer layer; the epi-layer is intrinsic as well. (b) B-ion implantation at an angle of 7◦ w.r.t. the substrate/NW tip to avoid channeling. (c) The intrinsic Si NW turns p-type. (d) An intrinsic Si NW grown on n-type Si(111) wafer; the epi-layer is intrinsic as well. (e) P/As-ion implantation at an angle of 7◦ w.r.t. the substrate/NW tip to avoid channeling. (f) The intrinsic Si NW turns n-type. for electrical measurements, a direct Au–Si contact has a more Schottky type behavior [19] at room temperature than a Pt/Ir– Si contact, which is part of our measurement system [16]. To get rid of these two problems, we removed the Au caps from the NWs by a 5 min dip in an aqueous solution of KI and I2 , a standard Au etchant. Figure 1(c) shows the cross-sectional TEM image of such a NW with the Au cap removed. This however did not remove the Au nanoparticles on the surface of the NWs, which is evident from figure 1(c). We assume that these Au nanoparticles are strongly attached to the NWs in the form of an Au:Si alloy. As a result of the Au droplet removal from the NW tip, we found the average length of the NWs reduced to 270 nm. The ion implantation was carried out with the goal of homogeneously doping the NWs along the entire length as mentioned above. The implantation process and the resulting change in the NW are schematically depicted in figures 2(a)– (f). The orientation of the NWs with respect to the impinging ions is as shown in figures 2(b) and (e). An angle of 7◦ between the ion beam and the NW tip/substrate surface was maintained in order to avoid ion channeling [8]. In these specific experiments we did not avoid the implantation of the surface of the substrate (which was actually the epilayer in between the NWs) during the implantation process. However, the type (n or p) of the implanted species and the substrates were always the same which let us avoid the formation of an unwanted bipolar junction between them. An implantation with a single energy and dose results in a near Gaussian concentration profile [7]. In order to achieve a more homogeneous dopant concentration along the length of the NWs, i.e. to get a rectangular doping profile, multi-energy implantation [20] is often used. We applied three to four Figure 3. Transport of ions in matter (TRIM) simulated concentration profiles of a multi-energy (a) B implantation, (b) P implantation, (c) As implantation. The ‘0’ on the x -axis refers to the NW top. Figure 3(a) and (b) are the resultant profiles of a three-step implant, and figure 3(b) is the resultant profile of a four-step implant. Refer to table 1 for details on the implantation energies and doses. steps of implantations with varying implantation energies and doses. The resultant profile should flatten over the entire range of 300 nm. We kept the range higher than the average NW length so that the epi-layer directly underneath the NWs is also doped to a significant extent. The intended doping profiles were simulated by the standard software TRIM [21] code. The simulations were performed for every individual implantation first, and then they were added to produce the resultant concentration profiles, which are shown in figures 3(a), (b) and (c) respectively. It should be noted that in general the TRIM model does not differentiate between an NW and a Si layer. In figure 3 the ‘0’ on the depth scale (x -axis) corresponds to the top of the NW. Table 1 lists the energies and doses used for each of the multiple implantations. We denote the resulting intended dopant concentrations as Nint . For the B implantation Nint was 3 × 1018 cm−3 (the same as the doping level of the buffer layer), for the P implantation Nint was 1 × 1019 cm−3 , 3 Nanotechnology 20 (2009) 165706 P D Kanungo et al Figure 4. Post-implantation and annealing cross-sectional TEM images of the NWs (upper row) and the corresponding epi-layer (lower row). B-implanted—figures (a), (b), P-implanted—figures (c), (d), As-implanted—figures (e), (f). Table 1. Implantation energies and doses for the B, P and As multi-energy implantations of the NWs. First implantation Second implantation Third implantation Fourth implantation Dopant Energy (keV) Dose (cm−2 ) Energy (keV) Dose (cm−2 ) Energy (keV) Dose (cm−2 ) Energy (keV) Dose (cm−2 ) B P As 55 140 300 3.4 × 1013 1.6 × 1014 1.7 × 1013 35 70 140 1.7 × 1013 6.5 × 1013 5.5 × 1012 15 30 80 1.7 × 1013 3.35 × 1013 2.2 × 1012 — — 30 — — 2.2 × 1012 and for the As implantation Nint was 1 × 1018 cm−3 . All the doping concentrations were chosen below the solubility limit and the following conditions were taken into account. A high doping level was desired to form an Ohmic contact [19] during electrical measurements. A high doping level also reduces the surface depletion [16] of the NWs. By surface depletion we mean trapping and subsequent deactivation of dopant atoms by the dangling bonds between Si and the native SiO2 at the unpassivated NW surface. However, previous experiments with As implantations showed that if the Nint value is in the range of 1019 cm−3 (as for the P implantation), requiring very high energy implants, it leads to a permanent amorphization of the NWs. Subsequent to the implantations we performed rapid thermal annealing (RTA) to activate the dopants and recover the NWs from any implantation-induced damage. For B implantation, an annealing at 850 ◦ C for 30 s in Ar atmosphere was tried. For P and As implantations, the annealing temperature was raised to 1000 ◦ C for the same duration. As a result of annealing, the concentration profiles should be flattened even more and extend further into the epilayer underneath the NWs. After the implantation and RTA, TEM imaging was performed to investigate any structural defect in the NWs caused by the implantation process. Typical TEM images of NWs corresponding to B, P and As implantations are shown in figures 4(a), (c) and (e) respectively. Figures 4(b), (d) and (f) show the epi-layers directly underneath the NWs. No Figure 5. SEM image of a NW contacted with the Pt/Ir tip for I –V measurement. residual amorphization was observed in the volume of the single-crystalline NWs for any of the implantations. However, we observed some defects in the epi-layers of the As implanted NW (figure 4(f)). Concerning our TEM analysis we think these are dislocation loops created during the implantation and annealing process, since they were not present in the as-grown NWs. 4 Nanotechnology 20 (2009) 165706 P D Kanungo et al <2 fA noise) with an internal voltage source. The back contact was realized with a conductive Ag paste that yielded a contact resistance in the range of 500–1000 . It is not possible to evaluate the top contact resistance in a two-point measurement such as this. However, the change of measured current from an unimplanted (nominally undoped) to an implanted (n- or ptype) NW will still reflect the effect of doping. The measured I –V curves of three each from B-, P- and As-implanted NWs of different diameters and lengths along with that of an unimplanted NW are plotted in figures 6(a), (b) and (c) respectively. All the I –V curves were measured in the range of −0.1 to 0.1 V, which is enough to excite the majority carriers at room temperature. Higher voltages often resulted in melting of the NWs. The current at 0.1 V was between 10 and 40 μA for the B-implanted and 1–5 μA for the P- and As-implanted NWs. This leads to current densities of around 105 A cm−2 and 104 A cm−2 respectively. The thermal conductivity of Si NWs is reported [23] to be two orders of magnitude lower than bulk Si. The high current density coupled with low thermal conductivity (low heat dissipation) may cause the observed burn-out due to self-heating. As can be seen from figure 6, all the I –V curves of the doped NWs demonstrate ohmic behavior with a significantly higher current compared to an unimplanted (nominally undoped) NW. It clearly indicates a doping induced increase of the electrical conductivity of the NWs. It was found earlier [16, 22] that the MBE-grown NWs suffer from a strong surface depletion. For the in situ B doped NWs [22] we found that with increased doping the volume conductivity from the NW dominates, and the surface depletion subsides. The intended dopant concentrations ( Nint ) in all the implanted NWs were quite high (1018 –1019 cm−3 ) in order to compensate the surface depletion as much as possible. However, it has been predicted [24] that for n-type Si NWs the surface depletion is much stronger than for the p-type NWs due to larger surface segregation energy of the n-type dopants. Due to the large area of the substrate compared to a single NW we can neglect its resistance compared to a NW. The exact contribution of the Au nanoparticles on the NW surface caused by the VLS growth mechanism is still unknown. However, they exist in both the unimplanted and implanted NWs in almost equal amounts. Therefore, we think that their contribution, if any, should be equal for both. From the linear I –V curves of figures 6, we calculated the resistance values. If we assume the whole of the calculated resistance comes from the volume of the NW, we can calculate the resistivity (ρmeas ) taking into account its cylindrical geometry. We have listed the resistance and resistivity for each of the measured NWs in table 2. If we assume the NWs are doped to the level of our intended concentrations ( Nint ), the dopants are fully activated, and furthermore the mobility (μ) values are same as the bulk mobility values for the corresponding Nint [19], we can calculate the expected resistivity (ρexp ) of the NWs from the following equation. Figure 6. The I –V curves of (a) three B-implanted NWs, (b) three P-implanted NWs and (c) three As-implanted NWs. The I –V curve of an as-grown, unimplanted NW is included in each case for comparison. Refer to table 1 for the dimensions and the measured electrical properties of the NWs. To confirm the effect of doping on the electrical properties of the implanted NWs, we measured the current–voltage characteristics ( I –V curves) of individual NWs. Therefore, we contacted vertical NWs with a Pt/Ir tip fitted to a micromanipulator inside an SEM. By moving the tip with the manipulator we could measure different individual NWs. We have already reported on the electrical measurements of nominally undoped [16] and in situ B doped Si NWs [22] using this measurement technique. With this approach we can image the NW first in the SEM, and then carefully make a contact between the tip and the top of the NW as shown in figure 5. The I –V curves were measured by a picoammeter (Keithley 6487, ρexp = 1 Nint eμ (1) where e is the electronic charge. The ρexp values for the B-, P- and As-implanted NWs are also shown in table 2. It can 5 Nanotechnology 20 (2009) 165706 P D Kanungo et al Table 2. The measured dimensions (from SEM images) and extracted electrical resistances (from the I –V curves in figure 6) and resistivities along with the expected resistivities corresponding to the intended doping levels of the NWs mentioned in figure 6. Nint (intended doping level) Implantation type (cm−3 ) NW number D (diameter) (nm) L (length) (nm) R (resistance) () ρmeas (measured resistivity = π D2 R ) ( cm) 4L ρexp (expected resistivity = 1 eμ) ( cm) Nint B-implanted 3 × 1018 NW 1 NW 2 NW 3 Unimplanted NW 160 176 191 160 240 308 255 280 3.0k 2.6k 6.8k 1.0G 0.02 0.02 0.07 7180 0.02 P-implanted 1 × 1019 NW 1 NW 2 NW 3 Unimplanted NW 150 140 160 165 270 270 240 295 21k 37k 71k 980M 0.13 0.20 0.50 7103 0.003 As-implanted 1 × 1018 NW 1 NW 2 NW 3 Unimplanted NW 166 175 180 165 240 235 260 295 65k 77k 80k 980M 0.50 0.70 0.80 7103 0.03 be seen from table 2 that for B-implanted NWs ρmeas and ρexp are of the same order of magnitude. This confirms that the full activation of our intended doping was achieved in the Bimplanted NWs. For both the P- and As-implanted NWs, the ρmeas values are higher than ρexp values by one to two orders of magnitude. Possible reasons for different behavior of n and p implantations will be discussed in the following sections. Boron is a light ion which is easily activated electrically in Si on annealing at 700 ◦ C or above [8]. Therefore, most of the B atoms are incorporated in the substitutional sites of the Si lattice at the annealing temperature of 850 ◦ C. This is why we do not see any defects either in the B-implanted NWs or in the epi-layer underneath and almost 100% electrical activity of the B atoms is achieved. As we demonstrated earlier [22], the surface depletion on B doped NWs is not significant beyond the doping level of 1018 cm−3 , which is our case. In the case of heavy P implantations like that of ours, transient enhanced diffusion (TED) [25–27] during RTA can increase the diffusivity of P atoms by orders of magnitude due to interaction with the defects created by the implantation. Using a value of 1.2 × 10−12 cm2 s−1 [25] for√the effective diffusion constant ( Deff ), the diffusion length (2 Deff t , where t = annealing time) reaches 120 nm, which is comparable to the average diameter of the NWs. Thereby, a significant number of P atoms can diffuse out of the NWs, especially in the radial direction, and reach the surface. This will further enhance the surface depletion, resulting in the higher than expected values of NW resistivity. In the case of the As-implanted NWs, TED is not as significant as in the P-implanted ones. However, it has been reported [28] that the surface depletion still plays a big role in increasing the resistivity of the As-doped NWs. Clément et al [28] reported an increase in resistivity by a factor of 14 for Asimplanted horizontal NWs, which agrees with our result. In addition, in the case of both the P- and As-implanted n-type NWs, the top contact resistance between Pt/Ir tip–nSi NW could be much higher than for the B-implanted p-type NWs due to differences in the barrier heights. This can also contribute to the measured higher resistivity. In conclusion, we have demonstrated both p- and ntype doping of intrinsic vertical Si NWs by ion implantation. We found a significant difference in electrical conductivity between the p- and n-implanted NWs that can be expected from previous theoretical predictions. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Dr O Breitenstein and Mr J Bauer for scientific discussions, and Mr A Frommfeld, Mr K U Assmann, Ms S Hopfe and Ms C Muenx for technical support. The authors would also like to acknowledge the financial support from the FP6 EU project NODE (Nanowire based one dimensional electronics). References [1] Cui Y and Lieber C M 2001 Science 291 851 [2] Chen L J 2007 J. Mater. 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