Athermal annealing of low-energy boron implants in silicon

Silicon samples that have been ion implanted with boron at energies below 3 keV have been athermally annealed. The annealing process has been characterized using secondary ion mass spectrometry and infrared absorption spectroscopy. The athermally annealed samples show activation comparable to that for thermally annealed samples, but with much less boron diffusion. The activation in the athermally annealed samples is shown to be much higher than would be achieved by recrystallization of the amorphous layer. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.