This work investigates how knock-on displacements influence fluctuation electron microscopy (FEM) experiments. FEM experiments were conducted on amorphous silicon, formed by self-ion implantation, in a transmission electron microscope at 300 kV and 60 kV at various electron doses, two different binnings and with two different cameras, a CCD and a CMOS one. Furthermore, energy filtering has been utilized in one case. Energy filtering greatly enhances the FEM data by removing the inelastic background intensity, leading to an improved speckle contrast. The CMOS camera yields a slightly larger normalized variance than the CCD at an identical electron dose and appears more prone to noise at low electron counts. Beam-induced atomic displacements affect the 300 kV FEM data, leading to a continuous suppression of the normalized variance with increasing electron dose. Such displacements are considerably reduced for 60 kV experiments since the primary electron's maximum energy transfer to an atom is less than the displacement threshold energy of amorphous silicon. The results show that the variance suppression due to knock-on displacements can be controlled in two ways: Either by minimizing the electron dose to the sample or by conducting the experiment at a lower acceleration voltage.

A focused ion beam (FIB) technique describing the preparation of specimens for in situ thermal and electrical transmission electron microscopy is presented in detail. The method can be applied to a wide range of materials and allows the sample to be thinned down to electron transparency while it is attached to the in situ chip. This offers the advantage that the specimen can have a quality in terms of contamination and damage due to the ion beam that is comparable to samples prepared by means of conventional FIB preparation. Additionally, our technique can be performed by most commercially available FIB devices and only requires three simple, custom stubs for the procedure. This should enable a large userbase for this type of sample fabrication. One further benefit of our technique is that the in situ chip can be reused to create another sample on the same chip. The quality of the samples is demonstrated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy as well as electron energy loss spectroscopy.

Variable-resolution fluctuation electron microscopy (VR-FEM) data from measurements on amorphous silicon and PdNiP have been obtained at varying experimental conditions. Measurements have been conducted at identical total electron dose and with an identical electron dose normalized to the respective probe size. STEM probes of different sizes have been created by variation of the semi-convergence angle or by defocus. The results show that defocus yields a reduced normalized variance compared to data from probes created by convergence angle variation. Moreover, the trend of the normalized variance upon probe size variation differs between the two methods. Beam coherence, which affects FEM data, has been analyzed theoretically using geometrical optics on a multi-lens setup and linked to the illumination conditions. Fits to several experimental beam profiles support our geometrical optics theory regarding probe coherence. The normalized variance can be further optimized if one determines the optimal exposure time for the nanobeam diffraction patterns.

We present experimental results of impurity and self-diffusion in an isotopically controlled silicon heterostructure extrinsically doped with phosphorus. As a consequence of extrinsic doping, the concentration of singly negatively charged native defects is enhanced and the role of these native defect charge states in the simultaneous phosphorus and Si self-diffusion can be determined. Multilayers of isotopically controlled 28Si and natural silicon enable simultaneous analysis of 30Si self-diffusion into the 28Si enriched layers and phosphorus diffusion throughout the multilayer structure. An amorphous 260 nm thick Si cap layer was deposited on top of the Si isotope heterostructure. The phosphorus ions were implanted to a depth such that all the radiation damage resided inside this amorphous cap layer, preventing the generation of excess native defects and enabling the determination of the Si self-diffusion coefficient and the phosphorus diffusivity under equilibrium conditions. These samples were annealed at temperatures between 950 and 1100°C to study the diffusion. Detailed analysis of the diffusion process was performed on the basis of a P diffusion model which involves neutral and positively charged mobile P species and neutral and singly negatively charged self-interstitial.

Isotopically controlled silicon multilayer structures were used to measure the enhancement of self- and dopant diffusion in extrinsic boron doped silicon. 30Si was used as a tracer through a multilayer structure of alternating natural Si and enriched 28Si layers. Low energy, high resolution secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) allowed for simultaneous measurement of self- and dopant diffusion profiles of samples annealed at temperatures between 850°C and 1100°C. A specially designed ion-implanted amorphous Si surface layer was used as a dopant source to suppress excess defects in the multilayer structure, thereby eliminating transient enhanced diffusion (TED) behavior. Self- and dopant diffusion coefficients, diffusion mechanisms, and native defect charge states were determined from computer-aided modeling, based on differential equations describing the diffusion processes. We present a quantitative description of B diffusion enhanced self-diffusion in silicon and conclude that the diffusion of both B and Si is mainly mediated by neutral and singly positively charged self-interstitials under p-type doping. No significant contribution of vacancies to either B or Si diffusion is observed.

We present experimental results of dopant- and self-diffusion in extrinsic silicon doped with As. Multilayers of isotopically controlled 28Si and natural silicon enable simultaneous analysis of 30Si diffusion into the 28Si enriched layers and dopant diffusion throughout the multilayer structure. In order to suppress transient enhanced self- and dopant diffusion caused by ion implantation, we adopted a special approach to dopant introduction. First, an amorphous 250-nm thick Si layer was deposited on top of the Si isotope heterostructure. Then the dopant ions were implanted to a depth such that all the radiation damage resided inside this amorphous cap layer. These samples were annealed for various times and temperatures to study the impact of As diffusion and doping on Si self-diffusion. The Si self-diffusion coefficient and the dopant diffusivity for various extrinsic n-type conditions were determined over a wide temperature range. We observed increased diffusivities that we attribute to the increase in the concentration of the native defect promoting the diffusion.

High-purity silicon used for the growth of single crystals is a material with a high resistivity. Small traces of foreign atoms, which are mainly substitutionally dissolved on lattice sites, make the material highly conductive and therefore suitable for electronic applications. The controlled incorporation of extrinsic point defects in silicon is the main task for the production of electronic devices. Homogeneous doping is generally achieved by adding a controlled amount of the dopant element to the silicon melt. However, the fabrication of electronic devices like diodes, transistors, and complex integrated circuits requires spatially inhomogeneous dopant distributions. Control of the inhomogeneous doping profiles demanded by the considerations outlined in the article by Packan in this issue requires a detailed knowledge of the atomic mechanisms of dopant diffusion in silicon, the properties of intrinsic point defects like vacancies (V) and self-interstitials (I), and the interactions among different point defects.

We propose a new approach for modeling of impurity diffusion at semiconductor heterointerfaces. The approach is based on the notion of a common energy reference for highly localized defects. It is shown that in the kick-out process, the segregation of group II acceptors is controlled by the valence band offsets among different constituent layers of the heterostructure. Extensive numerical modeling of the diffusion provides an explanation for the experimentally observed strong segregation of Zn and Be acceptors in the lattice matched InP/InGaAs, InP/InGaAsP and GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures.