Boron distribution in the core of Si nanowire grown by chemical vapor deposition

W. Chen (1) , V.G. Dubrovskii (2, 3) , X.L. Liu (4) , T. Xu (5) , Rodrigue Lardé (1) , J.P. Nys (5) , B. Grandidier (5) , D. Stievenard (5) , G. Patriarche (6) , Philippe Pareige (1)

1 GPM - Groupe de physique des matériaux
2 Saint Petersburg Academic University
3 A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute
4 BUPT - Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
5 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
6 LPN - Laboratoire de photonique et de nanostructures

The boron dopant distribution in Si nanowires grown by the Au-catalyzed chemical vapor deposition is characterized by laser-assisted atom probe tomography. A convenient and an effective method for performing the atom probe tomography of an individual nanowire is developed. Using this technique, we demonstrate that when Si nanowires are doped with boron at high silane partial pressure, the radial distribution of boron atoms is rather inhomogeneous. Much more boron atoms incorporate at the periphery than in the center, with the concentration increasing by an order of magnitude as the distance from the nanowire axis increases from zero to only 15 nm. A theoretical model is presented that is capable of describing the observed spatial inhomogeneity of boron dopant. We also consider different kinetic pathways of boron incorporation and discuss the values of diffusion length and diffusion coefficients obtained by fitting the experimental data

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

W. Chen, V.G. Dubrovskii, X.L. Liu, T. Xu, Rodrigue Lardé, et al.. Boron distribution in the core of Si nanowire grown by chemical vapor deposition. Journal of Applied Physics, 2012, 111 (9), pp.094909. ⟨10.1063/1.4714364⟩. ⟨hal-00787433⟩