Hydrogen passivation of acceptors in p-InP

Abstract

The problem of hydrogenation of InP without surface degradation has been surmounted by exposure of the InP surface to a hydrogen plasma through a thin SiNx(H) cap layer. This layer is H permeable at the hydrogenation temperature of 250 °C, but P or PH3 impermeable thus minimizing PH3 loss and the attendant In droplet formation. In contrast to our results for this type of plasma exposure of GaAs, we find that shallow acceptors in InP are heavily passivated, whereas shallow donors are only very weakly affected. For example, p+-InP(Zn) of 3×1018 cm-3 has its residual hole concentration reduced to ≤3×1014 cm-3 over a depth of 1.3 μm by a 250 °C, 0.5 h deuteration. The presence of acceptors impedes H (or D) indiffusion, as indicated by D diffusion under the same conditions occurring to depths of 18 and 35 μm in p-InP (Zn, 2×1016 cm-3) and n-InP (S or Sn), respectively. Annealing for 1 min at 350 °C causes the acceptor passivation to be lost and the hole concentration to be returned to its prehydrogenation level, indicating that the passivation has similar thermal stability to that of acceptors in GaAs, but lower than that of donors.