Precise millisecond annealing for advanced material processing

Flash lamp annealing (FLA) reduces the thermal budget on the bulk and thus hinders undesired thermal diffusion. For reliable process control, however, a temperature measurement concept is needed that is capable of facing the high radiation background of the flash lamps and the millisecond detection regime at the same time (Reichel et al., Crit. Rev. Solid State Mater. Sci. 36, 102 (2011) [1]). A new concept has been developed for precise in‐situ temperature measurement during flash‐lamp millisecond annealing. There has been taking advantage of FLA for various applications. Implantation and subsequent FLA were used to obtain III‐V semiconductor quantum dots on silicon pillars (Prucnal et al., Nano Lett. 11, 2814 (2011) [2]). The same procedure was applied to achieve superconductivity with conventional silicon technolog (Fiedler et al., Phys. Rev. B 83, 214504 (2011) [3]). FLA was further used for advanced doping of “dirty‐silicon” solar cells. The short annealing cycles allow for successful dopant activation while undesired metal impurities remain electrically inactive (Prucnal et al., Acta Phys. Pol. A 120, 192 (2011) [4]). These examples show that in‐situ process control is required to make sure the major advantage of millisecond annealing is not narrowed by unreliable temperature measurement. In this contribution, a method will be presented that satisfies this issue by in‐situ distinction between thermal and flash lamp radiation (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)