The thermal budget of hydrogen-related donor profiles: Diffusion-limited activation and thermal dissociation

The impact of the thermal budget on hydrogen-related donor profiles in high purity silicon implanted with protons in the energy range of MeV is investigated. The appearance of the donor profiles is limited to the annealing temperature regime between about 350 °C and 500 °C. The activation of the doping profiles is limited by the diffusion of the implanted hydrogen from the end-of-range region throughout the radiation-induced damage. This formation process of the profiles is adequately described by a diffusion model with an effective activation energy of 1.2 eV. The hydrogenrelated donors are radiation-induced defect complexes decorated by the implanted hydrogen. The thermal stability of these donors is limited by their dissociation. The deactivation of the doping is modeled by two hydrogen-related donor species with effective dissociation energies of 2.5 eV and 3 eV. The formation and dissociation mechanisms described in the present study define the upper and lower limi ts of the post-implantation thermal budget, respectively, for the sensible use of proton implantation doping in crystalline Silicon.