Toward Deterministic Doping of Silicon <i>via</i> Dopant Containing Homopolymer

Manipulation of isolated impurity atoms in semiconductors fostered a vision of novel classical and quantum single atom devices. The main roadblock toward their exploitation is the lack of strategies to control the positioning of dopant impurities within the semiconductor lattice by a methodology compatible with current semiconductor technology. Recently, we developed a doping strategy using self-assembled monolayers of polymers terminated with P-containing moieties, used as dopant-carrying molecules.(1,2) Their self-limiting “grafting-to” reaction from melt determine the areal density of the grafted molecules and consequently the number of P atoms in the dopant source. Subsequent injection and activation of P atoms into the Si substrate is achieved by high temperature annealing.(1) Control of the lateral distribution of P atoms over the substrate could be achieved by integrating these materials with suitable lithographic techniques. In this talk, we will review our results on this topic providing preliminary data on the development of a deterministic doping strategy based on self-assembly materials.

References

1) M. Perego et al., ACS Nano, 2018, 12, 178–186.
2) R. Chiarcos et al., ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 2019, 1, 1807-1816