Nondestructive analysis of ultrashallow junctions using thermal wave technology

It is shown that the thermal wave (TW) nondestructive technology widely used in semiconductor industry for ion-implant monitoring can also be used for characterization of ultrashallow junctions created as a result of thermal annealing of ion implanted wafers. A set of Si wafers implanted with boron at energies 0.2–0.5 keV and implantation doses in the range of 10 14 –10 15 cm −2 thermally annealed at different temperatures (950–1100 °C) has been studied. For all samples, the TW signal is found to vary linearly with junction depth and is shown to exhibit a very good correlation with secondary ion mass spectrometry data. A special processing of experimental data using both the TW quadrature and in-phase signal components allowing for resolution of effects introduced by different implantation doses, energies, and annealing temperatures is discussed.