Pulsed Laser Annealing of Silicon-Carbon Source/Drain in MuGFETs for Enhanced Dopant Activation and High Substitutional Carbon Concentration

摘要

We report for the first time, the use of pulsed laser annealing (PLA) on multiple-gate field-effect transistors (MuGFETs) with silicon-carbon $(hbox{Si}_{1-x}hbox{C}_{x})$ source and drain (S/D) for enhanced dopant activation and improved strain effects. $hbox{Si}_{1-x}hbox{C}_{x}$ S/D exposed to consecutive laser irradiations demonstrated superior dopant activation with a $sim$ 60% reduction in resistivity compared to rapid thermal annealed S/D. In addition, with the application of PLA on epitaxially grown $hbox{Si}_{0.99}hbox{C}_{0.01}$ , substitutional carbon concentration $C_{rm sub}$ increased from 1.0% (as grown) to 1.21%. This is also significantly higher than the $C_{rm sub}$ of 0.71% for rapid thermal annealed $hbox{Si}_{0.99} hbox{C}_{0.01}$ S/D. With a higher strain and enhanced dopant activation, MuGFETs with laser annealed $hbox{Si}_{0.99}hbox{C}_{0.01}$ S/D show a $sim$53% drain–current improvement compared to MuGFETs with rapid thermal annealed $hbox{Si}_{0.99}hbox{C}_{0.01}$ S/D.