Chemical Vapor Deposition Epitaxy of Silicon and Silicon-Carbon Alloys at High Rates and Low Temperatures using Neopentasilane

The silicon precursor neopentasilane is used to grow epitaxial silicon at high growth rates from 550 to 700 oC, with rates over 100 nm/min achieved at 600 oC. The layer quality as observed by TEM and the performance of FET's made in these films is high. Neopentasilane has also been used to grow dilute strained Si1-yCy alloys on silicon with very high growth rates. For carbon levels on the order of 2%, strained layers were grown at rates over 40 nm/min.