The Journal of
the Korean Journal of Metals and Materials

The Journal of
the Korean Journal of Metals and Materials

Monthly
  • pISSN : 1738-8228
  • eISSN : 2288-8241

Editorial Office

Title Research Paper / Surface Treatment : Removal of Cr and Zn Impurities from the Si Substrate using the Remote H2 Plasma
Authors 이성욱(Seung Wook Lee),이재갑(Jae Gab Lee),이종무(Chong Mu Lee)
Page pp.334-339
ISSN 1738-8228(ISSN), 2288-8241(eISSN)
Abstract The removal of Cr and Zn impurities on Si substrates using the remote H₂ plasma was investigated. To determine the optimum process condition, the remote H₂ plasma cleaning was conducted for various rf-powers and plasma exposure time. The optimum process parameters for Cr and Zn removal were set at the rf-power of 20W and plasma exposure of 5 min. The concentrations of Cr and Zn impurities were reduced by more than a factor of 2 and the minority carrier lifetime increased after the remote plasma H₂ cleaning. Also RMS roughness decreased by more than 30%∼50% after the remote H₂ plasma cleaning. AFM analysis results also show that the remote H₂ plasma cleaning makes no damage to the Si surface. The removal mechanism of the Cr and Zn impurities in the remote H₂ plasma cleaning is proposed to be the lift-off mechanism during the removal of the underlying chemical oxides.