H-induced defects

Essential to the identification of H-induced defects in silicon was the use of a remote hydrogen plasma system as described in Section 1.2. The alternative of direct immersion in a plasma introduces charged-particle bombardment and possible photochemical effects that can obscure the purely chemical consequences of hydrogen migrating into silicon. While the evidence presented below strongly argues for the existence of H-induced defects, many issues remain to be resolved. 

In addition to the generation of platelets, hydrogenation of silicon also induces electronic deep levels in the band gap. As in the case of platelet formation, these defects are considered to be unrelated to either plasma or radiation damage because they can be introduced with a remote hydrogen plasma. Comparison of depth distributions and annealing kinetics of the platelets and gap states has been used to a limited extent to probe the relationship among these manifestations of H-induced defects. 

Another open question is the relationship between the H-induced radiative recombination centers and the H-induced platelets. Controlled layer removal of the plasma-processed silicon surface reveals that the density of luminescence centers decays nearly exponentially with a decay length that is comparable to the depth over which the platelets form (Northrop and Oehrlein, 1986 Jeng et al., 1988 Johnson et al., 1987a). However, the defect luminescence has also been obtained from reactive-ion etched specimens in which platelets were undetectable (Wu et al., 1988). Finally, substantial changes in the luminescence spectra occur at anneal temperatures as low as 250°C (Singh et al., 1989), while higher temperatures... 

Apart from its role in interacting with existing defects and impurities, hydrogen has recently been shown to induce defects as well (Johnson et al., 1987). Extended defects (described as platelets ) in the near-surface region were observed after hydrogenation and correlated with the presence of large concentrations of H. Theoretical models will be discussed in Part VIII. Part IX, finally, will contain some conclusions and point out directions for future work. As is the case for so many other topics in semiconductor physics, silicon (Si) has been the material for which the majority of... 

For H at T in Ge, Pickett et al. (1979) carried out empirical-pseudopotential supercell calculations. Their band structures showed a H-induced deep donor state more than 6 eV below the valence-band maximum in a non-self-consistent calculation. This binding energy was substantially reduced in a self-consistent calculation. However, lack of convergence and the use of empirical pseudopotentials cast doubt on the quantitative accuracy. More recent calculations (Denteneer et al., 1989b) using ab initio norm-conserving pseudopotentials have shown that H at T in Ge induces a level just below the valence-band maximum, very similar to the situation in Si. The arguments by Pickett et al. that a spin-polarized treatment would be essential (which would introduce a shift in the defect level of up to 0.5 Ry), have already been refuted in Section II.2.d. 

Another approach by Hiittermann et al. [50] has been to use pulsed EPR techniques to study the radicals present in DNA fibers equilibrated in D2O and then irradiated and observed at 77 K. This work supports the conclusions that the primary radiation-induced defects are Cyt and Gua. Also reported are contributions from Thy and an allyl radical found on thymine [Thy(Me—H) ]. Also discussed are three components tentatively assigned as adenine and guanine anions and a species whose dominant hyperfine interaction involves the N1 of cytosine. 

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