On artefacts in the secondary ion mass spectrometry profiling of high fluence H+ implants in GaAs

High fluence (>1017 H/cm2) ion implantation of H in GaAs is suitable for the ion cut process, and produces H bubbles under the surface which may cause blistering. By comparing the destructive depth profiling of these implants by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) with non-destructive profiling by elastic recoil detection analysis (ERD), we demonstrate that SIMS underestimates total H content by up to a factor of 2 due to undetected H escaping from bubbles during analysis. We also show that the depth of the maximum H concentration from SIMS can be in error by 20% due to large variations in the sputter rate through the profile.