Control of Implantation Area in Direct-Current Plasma Immersion Ion Implantation (DC-PIII)

In plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) of planar samples such as silicon wafers in the PIII - ion-cut as well as separation by plasma implantation of oxygen (SPIMOX) processes, the only important ions are the ones arriving at the top surface. Ions implanted into the other surfaces are, in fact, undesirable as they reduce the efficiency of the power supply and plasma source and give rise to metallic contamination. We have demonstrated direct-current PIII (DC-PIII) by using a grounded grid to separate the vacuum chamber for planar sample implantation. The advantages include lower equipment cost, higher power and time efficiency, larger impact energy, and last but not least, smaller instrument footprint. In this paper, we investigate the control of the implantation area by adjusting the radius of the extraction hole, the distance between the conducting grid and the sample, and the radius of the wafer stage. Theoretical simulation is conducted using particle-in-cell and experiments are also carried out. Our results indicate that the implanted area increases with the radius of the extraction hole and wafer stage, but decreases with a larger distance between the grid and sample. The effects of the extraction hole radius G_r are the largest, followed by the placement of the sample to the conducting grid H. The wafer stage poses the least influence in this respect, but a proper wafer stage dimension improves the lateral implant dose and incident angle homogeneity. Our simulation and experimental results suggest optimal ratios of these parameters for each wafer size.