Hydrogen gettering at buried defect layers in ion-implanted silicon by plasma hydrogenation and annealing

In this study gettering of atomic hydrogen in-diffused from a plasma hydrogenated surface into self ion implanted and annealed Si is investigated. Cz Si p-type samples were implanted with 3.5 MeV Si+ ions to a fluence 5 × 1015 cm−2 and then annealed at 900 °C. The hydrogenation of the samples was performed by exposure to the direct RF hydrogen plasma in a plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) reactor. A remote deuterium plasma treatment was used as well. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) was employed for analysis of the hydrogen/deuterium distributions. It is demonstrated for the first time that accumulation of diffused hydrogen occurs both at the projected range of the silicon ions, Rp, and at Rp/2. It is shown that hydrogen accumulation by vacancy-type defects at Rp/2 is as efficient as for trapping by dislocations at Rp.