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 characte rized using secondary ion mass spectrometry and infrared absorption spectro scopy. The athermally annealed samples show activation comparable to that f or thermally annealed samples, but with much less boron diffusion. The acti vation in the athermally annealed samples is shown to be much higher than w ould be achieved by recrystallization of the amorphous layer. (C) 2001 Amer ican Institute of Physics.