Institute of Metals Division - The Epitaxial Deposition of Silicon on Quartz and Alumina

Epitaxial layers of silicon have been grown on single-crystal quartz and alumina by two types of chemical reaction the hydrogen reduction of trichlorosilane and b) the pyrolysis of silane. These reaction systems are described. The cqsfallography of the two systems, as determined by electron and X-ray diffraction, is discussed, and epitaxial mechanisms suggested. The electrical behavior is briefly considered, and the design and properties of field-evert devices fabricated in the epilaxial material are also discussed. RECENT work carried out in these laboratories" has shown that it is possible to obtain epitaxial deposits of silicon on single-crystal quartz and alumina. The purpose of this paper is to describe the method of preparation of these layers using both the hydrogen reduction of trichlorosilane and the pyroly-sis of silane, to compare the crystallographic behavior of films on the two substrates, and to present some initial results of the electrical behavior of silicon layers on alumina. The structural study has been carried out using electron and X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy. The electrical assessment has been made in terms of conductivity and mobility determinations by the van der pauw3 technique, and by measurements on metal-oxide-semiconductor assemblies. 1) FILM PREPARATION Both quartz and alumina substrates, approximately 1 sq cm in area and 0.4 mm thick. were prepared from slices cut parallel to within a few degrees of (11.0), (10.0), and (00.1), and polished mechanically down to about 0.3 p diamond grade. Chemical polishing of alumina slices, using phosphoric acid at elevated temperatures, has also been used; epitaxial silicon layers have been grown on these substrates, but the process is not entirely reliable, possibly because the large strain present in the Verneuil-grown alumina crystal affects the chemically prepared surface. The two reaction systems are fairly conventional and are described briefly below. a) Trichlorosilane-Hydrogen System. The apparatus is shown schematically in Fig. 1. The substrate was heated by induction, with a fused-quartz encapsulated graphite hemicylinder as susceptor. The procedure for carrying out a deposition was to heat the substrate to reaction temperature in a stream of