Point-Defect Properties of Indium in Silicon and Silicon Dioxide

There is an increasing interest in the use of In as an alternative p-type dopant for silicon device processing. For instance, recent investigation indicate that replacing B with IN as a channel dopant improves advanced NMOS devices. Advantages such as these have been related to the physical properties of In in Si, in particular as compared to B. Nevertheless, In has been studied least of all practical Si dopants and its properties remain controversial, e.g., the improved performance of In-channel devices is attributed to the "absence of diffusion. In this paper we report on a comprehensive study of the diffusional protperties of In in Si as well as in SiO sub 2, i.e., diffusion, segregation, and solubility.