Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The rapid annealing of implant damage using thermal radiation has been shown to be a production-worthy method of achieving good activation and minimal dopant redistribution of implanted species. The method involves the shuttered exposure of a standard 3" or 4" silicon wafer to a uniform thermal radiation front produced by a graphite heater for short times (10–30 sec). The propagation of residual damage observed by TEM is significantly less than that produced by furnace annealing and device structures annealed have electrical characteristics comparable to standard furnace anneals.