Quantifying Implantation Damage and Point Defects with Multislice Electron Ptychography

Abstract

Ion implantation is widely used to dope semiconductors for electronic device fabrication, but techniques to quantify point defects and induced damage are limited. While several techniques can measure dopant concentration profiles with high accuracy, none allow for simultaneous atomic resolution structural analysis. Here, we use multislice electron ptychography to quantify the damage induced by erbium implantation in a wide band gap semiconductor 4H-SiC over a 1,000 nm\textsuperscript{3} volume region. This damage extends further into the sample than expected from implantation simulations that do not consider crystallography. Further, the technique's sensitivity to dopants and vacancies is evaluated as a function of damage. As each reconstructed analysis volume contains approximately 10$^5$ atoms, sensitivity of 10\textsuperscript{18} cm\textsuperscript{-3} (in the order of 10 ppm) is demonstrated in the implantation tail region. After point defect identification, the local distortions surrounding \ch{Er_{Si}} and \ch{v_{Si}} defects are quantified. These results underscore the power of multislice electron ptychography to enable the investigation of point defects as a tool to guide the fabrication of future electronic devices.