Improvement in electron holographic phase images of focused-ion-beam-milled GaAs and Si p - n junctions by in situ annealing

Low temperature ( 200 - 600 ° C ) annealing in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) is used to provide a significant noise reduction in phase images of focused-ion-beam-milled GaAs and Si p - n junctions recorded using off-axis electron holography, as well as increasing the measured phase shifts across the junctions. Our results suggest that annealing removes defects resulting from Ga + implantation and reactivates dopant atoms in the thin TEM specimens. In GaAs, electrically inactive surface layer thicknesses are reduced from 80 to 17 nm on each specimen surface after annealing at 500 ° C . In Si the improvement is from 25 to 5 nm .