ABSTRACTIn recent years, a number of experimental observations have indicated that interactions between mobile point defects generated during ion implantation play an important role in the damage production in Ill-V compound semiconductors, and particularly GaAs. This paper reviews a set of such observations based on ion channeling measurements of the lattice damage in GaAs implanted with Si ions. Selected independent observations are also surveyed to illustrate the importance of point-defect interactions. Taken together, these show that at least two contributions to the lattice damage must often be considered: a “prompt” contribution attributed to direct-impact amorphization, and a “delayed” contribution attributed to point-defect clustering. New measurements are then described which show the different effects that these two damage components have on the electrical activation in annealed, Siimplanted GaAs. The aim is to indicate the potential to exploit the balance between these two damage contributions in order to improve the electrical performance and reproducibility of ion-implanted and annealed layers. Finally, the applicability of these concepts to other ion species and other compound semiconductors (GaP and InP) is briefly discussed.
Intrinsic Point-Defect Balance in Self-Ion-Implanted ZnO