Suppression of anomalous diffusion of ion-implanted boron in silicon by laser processing

Anomalous diffusion of ion-implanted boron in silicon has been suppressed by using the laser annealing (LA) technique. For the rapid thermal annealing process, the high-dosage boron implant significantly enhanced the anomalous diffusion of boron in Si largely due to increased density of interstitial clusters. The mechanism that electrically active dopants contribute to diffusion is confirmed. The dopant activation is primarily determined from the heating process rather than the holding time interval. Hence, the optimum annealing regime, attaining high-performance shallow p+-n junctions, is to increase the dopant activation efficiency during the temperature-ramping process as well as to shorten the holding interval. Having an ultrahigh heating rate, the LA technique serves as an excellent annealing scheme to significantly suppress the anomalous diffusion and considerably promote the dopant activation.