Improving radiation tolerance with room temperature annealing of pre-existing defects

Pre-existing defects in semiconductor devices can act as nucleation sites for radiation damage. Defects generated from mismatches in lattice constant, stiffness and thermal expansion are difficult to eliminate with thermal annealing. We propose a non-thermal stimulus, the electron wind force, to red...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Md Hafijur Rahman, Felix Cooper, Miguel L. Crespillo, Khalid Hattar, Aman Haque, Fan Ren, Stephen Pearton, Douglas Wolfe
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:Applied Physics Express
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.35848/1882-0786/adab50
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Summary:Pre-existing defects in semiconductor devices can act as nucleation sites for radiation damage. Defects generated from mismatches in lattice constant, stiffness and thermal expansion are difficult to eliminate with thermal annealing. We propose a non-thermal stimulus, the electron wind force, to reduce the pre-existing defect concentration in Zener diodes at room temperature in a minute. The pristine and pre-annealed diodes were exposed to 11 MeV Au ^3+ ions at different fluences to induce damage levels of 0.2, 2, 10 and 20 displacement per atom (dpa). Post irradiation characterization showed up to 10 times improvement in radiation tolerance in the pre-annealed devices.
ISSN:1882-0786