Dopant activation and damage evolution in implanted silicon after excimer laser annealing

The relationship between dopant activation and damage evolution in implanted silicon after multi-pulsed laser thermal annealing process is investigated by means of simulations and experimental analysis. The code simulates the dopant evolution coupled to the defect kinetics in the presence of fast varying temperature, high thermal gradients and phase transition. It considers defects (interstitials Is and vacancies Vs) clustering, annihilation and the interaction between point defects and the active/inactive fractions of the impurity density. Simulations allow a characterization of the residual damage as a function of the process conditions. Moreover, the model correctly predicts some experimental P profiles. Among the studied irradiation conditions, the partial melting regime shows an interesting dynamics of the active profile fraction as a function of laser energy and the pulse number. Finally, simulations also demonstrate that the status of the defect system rules the activation phenomenon, which can be reliably predicted only including in the model the defect-(active) impurity coupling.