Dopant incorporation in thin strained Si layers implanted with Sb

The effect of tensile strain on Sb incorporation in Si and its activation during post-implantation annealing has been studied by a combination of Rutherford backscattering/channeling spectrometry, secondary ion mass spectrometry, X-ray diffraction and 4-point probe measurements. Our results show that, for Sb implanted samples a tensile strain has an important role for dopant behavior. Particularly, increasing the tensile strain in the Si layer from 0 to 0.8% leads to an enhancement of the fraction of incorporated Sb atoms in substitutional sites already during implantation from ~ 7 to 30%. Furthermore, 0.8% strain in antimony doped Si gives ~ 20% reduction in the sheet resistance in comparison to the unstrained sample.