Annealing kinetics of defects of ion-implanted and furnace annealed silicon layers: thermodynamic approach

This article reviews some recent results concerning the effects of isochronal annealing and the attempts to model the kinetics of local reconstruction mechanisms of layers with different degrees of inhomogeneity such as implanted unannealed and annealed silicon layers. The kinetics of the reconstruction mechanisms of the damaged layers and the annihilation of defects are studied via some electronic, optical and thermal-wave techniques. In order to determine the activation energy of the local annealing recovery mechanism the 'Law of Mass Action' (LMA) has been used. This showed that the kinetics of annihilation of the damage layer are consistent with a local annealing process in which the observed variation of the electric, optical and thermal parameters could be described by a relaxation-type relationship. The activation energy of the recovery process of the ion implantation damage is found to be between 0.1 and 0.8 eV. On the other hand, the range of annealing temperature from 400 to 600oC is the critical range where the layer reconstruction takes place. (Author)