Low thermal budget surface cleaning after dry etching for selective silicon epitaxial growth

We studied the influence of plasma etching damage on epitaxial Si growth us ing ultrahigh vacuum chemical vapor deposition. The damaged layer induced o n substrate surface had an amorphous structure that had some carbon, oxygen , and fluorine in its composition. The damaged layer was removed by in situ preheating above 850 degreesC, before the growth, or by chemical dry etchi ng (CDE). We found that CDE has the effect of decreasing the preheating tem perature by 200 degreesC as compared to the case without CDE. Furthermore, the dependence of the surface roughness of grown films on post-etching trea tments is also discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.