Abstract: A germanium-containing layer is deposited on a single crystalline bulk silicon substrate in an ambient including a level of oxygen partial pressure sufficient to incorporate 1%-50% of oxygen in atomic concentration. The thickness of the germanium-containing layer is preferably limited to maintain some degree of epitaxial alignment with the underlying silicon substrate. Optionally, a graded germanium-containing layer can be grown on, or replace, the germanium-containing layer. An at least partially crystalline silicon layer is subsequently deposited on the germanium-containing layer. A handle substrate is bonded to the at least partially crystalline silicon layer. The assembly of the bulk silicon substrate, the germanium-containing layer, the at least partially crystalline silicon layer, and the handle substrate is cleaved within the germanium-containing layer to provide a composite substrate including the handle substrate and the at least partially crystalline silicon layer.

Abstract: Strained Si and strained SiGe on insulator devices, methods of manufacture and design structures is provided. The method includes growing an SiGe layer on a silicon on insulator wafer. The method further includes patterning the SiGe layer into PFET and NFET regions such that a strain in the SiGe layer in the PFET and NFET regions is relaxed. The method further includes amorphizing by ion implantation at least a portion of an Si layer directly underneath the SiGe layer. The method further includes performing a thermal anneal to recrystallize the Si layer such that a lattice constant is matched to that of the relaxed SiGe, thereby creating a tensile strain on the NFET region. The method further includes removing the SiGe layer from the NFET region. The method further includes performing a Ge process to convert the Si layer in the PFET region into compressively strained SiGe.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for removing or reducing the thickness of ultrathin interfacial oxides remaining at Si—Si interfaces after silicon wafer bonding. In particular, the invention provides a method for removing ultrathin interfacial oxides remaining after hydrophilic Si—Si wafer bonding to create bonded Si—Si interfaces having properties comparable to those achieved with hydrophobic bonding. Interfacial oxide layers of order of about 2 to about 3 nm are dissolved away by high temperature annealing, for example, an anneal at 1300°-1330° C. for 1-5 hours. The inventive method is used to best advantage when the Si surfaces at the bonded interface have different surface orientations, for example, when a Si surface having a (100) orientation is bonded to a Si surface having a (110) orientation. In a more general aspect of the invention, the similar annealing processes may be used to remove undesired material disposed at a bonded interface of two silicon-containing semiconductor materials.

Abstract: A photovoltaic device and method include a substrate layer having a plurality of structures including peaks and troughs formed therein. A continuous photovoltaic stack is conformally formed over the substrate layer and extends over the peaks and troughs. The photovoltaic stack has a thickness of less than one micron and is configured to transduce incident radiation into current flow.

Abstract: Methods are provided for fabricating devices. A first layer is formed. A hardmask on the first layer is formed. Features on the hardmask are patterned. The sizes of features on the hardmask are reduced by applying a plasma treatment process to form reduced size features. Also, the size of features on the hardmask can be enlarged to form enlarged size features by applying the plasma treatment process and/or removing the oxidized part of the feature during plasma treatment process. Another method may include a first layer formed on a substrate and a second layer formed on the first layer. First features are patterned on the first layer, and second features are patterned on the second layer. A size of second features on the second layer is closed due to the different oxidation rate of the two layers during the plasma treatment process, to form a self-sealed channel and/or self-buried trench.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method for removing or reducing the thickness of ultrathin interfacial oxides remaining at Si—Si interfaces after silicon wafer bonding. In particular, the invention provides a method for removing ultrathin interfacial oxides remaining after hydrophilic Si—Si wafer bonding to create bonded Si—Si interfaces having properties comparable to those achieved with hydrophobic bonding. Interfacial oxide layers of order of about 2 to about 3 nm are dissolved away by high temperature annealing, for example, an anneal at 1300°-1330° C. for 1-5 hours. The inventive method is used to best advantage when the Si surfaces at the bonded interface have different surface orientations, for example, when a Si surface having a (100) orientation is bonded to a Si surface having a (110) orientation. In a more general aspect of the invention, the similar annealing processes may be used to remove undesired material disposed at a bonded interface of two silicon-containing semiconductor materials.

Abstract: An embedded epitaxial semiconductor portion having a different composition than matrix of the semiconductor substrate is formed with a lattice mismatch and epitaxial alignment with the matrix of the semiconductor substrate. The temperature of subsequent ion implantation steps is manipulated depending on the amorphizing or non-amorphizing nature of the ion implantation process. For a non-amorphizing ion implantation process, the ion implantation processing step is performed at an elevated temperature, i.e., a temperature greater than nominal room temperature range. For an amorphizing ion implantation process, the ion implantation processing step is performed at nominal room temperature range or a temperature lower than nominal room temperature range. By manipulating the temperature of ion implantation, the loss of strain in a strained semiconductor alloy material is minimized.

Abstract: A low cost method is described for forming a textured Si surface such as for a solar cell which includes forming a dielectric layer containing pinholes, anisotropically etching through the pinholes to form inverted pyramids in the Si surface and removing the dielectric layer thereby producing a high light trapping efficiency for incident radiation.

Abstract: A method for forming a single, few-layer, or multi-layer graphene and structure is described incorporating selecting a substrate having a buried layer of carbon underneath a metal layer, providing an ambient and providing a heat treatment to pass carbon through the metal layer to form a graphene layer on the metal layer surface or incorporating a metal-carbon layer which is heated to segregate carbon in the form of graphene to the surface or chemically reacting the metal in the metal-carbon layer with a substrate containing Si driving the carbon to the surface whereby graphene is formed.

Abstract: Methods are provided for fabricating devices. A first layer is formed. A hardmask on the first layer is formed. Features on the hardmask are patterned. The sizes of features on the hardmask are reduced by applying a plasma treatment process to form reduced size features. Also, the size of features on the hardmask can be enlarged to form enlarged size features by applying the plasma treatment process and/or removing the oxidized part of the feature during plasma treatment process. Another method may include a first layer formed on a substrate and a second layer formed on the first layer. First features are patterned on the first layer, and second features are patterned on the second layer. A size of second features on the second layer is closed due to the different oxidation rate of the two layers during the plasma treatment process, to form a self-sealed channel and/or self-buried trench.

Abstract: The present invention discloses the use of edge-angle-optimized solid phase epitaxy for forming hybrid orientation substrates comprising changed-orientation Si device regions free of the trench-edge defects typically seen when trench-isolated regions of Si are recrystallized to the orientation of an underlying single-crystal Si template after an amorphization step. For the case of amorphized Si regions recrystallizing to (100) surface orientation, the trench-edge-defect-free recrystallization of edge-angle-optimized solid phase epitaxy may be achieved in rectilinear Si device regions whose edges align with the (100) crystal's in-plane <100> directions.

Abstract: A semiconductor structure, such as a CMOS semiconductor structure, includes a field effect device that includes a plurality of source and drain regions that are asymmetric. Such a source region and drain region asymmetry is induced by fabricating the semiconductor structure using a semiconductor substrate that includes a horizontal plateau region contiguous with and adjoining a sloped incline region. Within the context of a CMOS semiconductor structure, such a semiconductor substrate allows for fabrication of a pFET and an nFET upon different crystallographic orientation semiconductor regions, while one of the pFET and the nFET (i.e., typically the pFET) has asymmetric source and drain regions.

Abstract: A method of texturing a surface of a substrate utilizing a phase-segregated mask and etching is disclosed. The resulting textured surface, which can be used as a component of a solar cell includes, in one embodiment, a randomly mixed collection of flat-topped and angled surfaces providing local high points and local low points. The flat-topped surfaces have an areal density of at least 1%, and the high points are coincident with the flat-topped surfaces. Moreover, a preponderance of said low points are approximately situated in a single common plane parallel to the plane defined by the flat-topped surfaces.

Abstract: This invention teaches methods of combining ion implantation steps with in situ or ex situ heat treatments to avoid and/or minimize implant-induced amorphization (a potential problem for source/drain (S/D) regions in FETs in ultrathin silicon on insulator layers) and implant-induced plastic relaxation of strained S/D regions (a potential problem for strained channel FETs in which the channel strain is provided by embedded S/D regions lattice mismatched with an underlying substrate layer). In a first embodiment, ion implantation is combined with in situ heat treatment by performing the ion implantation at elevated temperature. In a second embodiment, ion implantation is combined with ex situ heat treatments in a “divided-dose-anneal-in-between” (DDAB) scheme that avoids the need for tooling capable of performing hot implants.

Abstract: The present invention provides an improved amorphization/templated recrystallization (ATR) method for fabricating low-defect-density hybrid orientation substrates. ATR methods for hybrid orientation substrate fabrication generally start with a Si layer having a first orientation bonded to a second Si layer or substrate having a second orientation. Selected regions of the first Si layer are amorphized and then recrystallized into the orientation of the second Si layer by using the second Si layer as a template. The process flow of the present invention solves two major difficulties not disclosed by prior art ATR methods: the creation of “corner defects” at the edges of amorphized Si regions bounded by trenches, and undesired orientation changes during a high temperature post-recrystallization defect-removal annealing of non-ATR'd regions not bounded by trenches.

Abstract: The present invention provides an improved amorphization/templated recrystallization (ATR) method for forming hybrid orientation substrates and semiconductor device structures. A direct-silicon-bonded (DSB) silicon layer having a (011) surface crystal orientation is bonded to a base silicon substrate having a (001) surface crystal orientation to form a DSB wafer in which the in-plane <110> direction of the (011) DSB layer is aligned with an in-plane <110> direction of the (001) base substrate. Selected regions of the DSB layer are amorphized down to the base substrate to form amorphized regions aligned with the mutually orthogonal in-plane <100> directions of the (001) base substrate, followed by recrystallization using the base substrate as a template.

Abstract: The invention provides a high temperature (about 1150° C. or greater) annealing process for converting thick polycrystalline Si layers on the order of 1 ?m to 40 ?m on a single crystal seed layer into thick single crystal Si layers having the orientation of the seed layer, thus allowing production of thick Si films having the quality of single crystal silicon at high rates and low cost of processing. Methods of integrating such high temperature processing into solar cell fabrication are described, with particular attention to process flows in which the seed layer is disposed on a porous silicon release layer. Another aspect pertains to the use of similar high temperature anneals for poly-Si grain growth and grain boundary passivation. A further aspect relates to structures in which these thick single crystal Si films and passivated poly-Si films are incorporated.

Abstract: A method for fabrication of a multijunction photovoltaic (PV) cell includes forming a stack comprising a plurality of junctions on a substrate, each of the plurality of junctions having a respective bandgap, wherein the plurality of junctions are ordered from the junction having the largest bandgap being located on the substrate to the junction having the smallest bandgap being located on top of the stack; forming a metal layer, the metal layer having a tensile stress, on top of the junction having the smallest bandgap; adhering a flexible substrate to the metal layer; and spalling a semiconductor layer from the substrate at a fracture in the substrate, wherein the fracture is formed in response to the tensile stress in the metal layer.

Abstract: A system and method for patterning metal oxide materials in a semiconductor structure. The method comprises a first step of depositing a layer of metal oxide material over a substrate. Then, a patterned mask layer is formed over the metal oxide layer leaving one or more first regions of the metal oxide layer exposed. The exposed first regions of the metal oxide layer are then subjected to an energetic particle bombardment process to thereby damage the first regions of the metal oxide layer. The exposed and damaged first regions of the metal oxide layer are then removed by a chemical etch. Advantageously, the system and method is implemented to provide high-k dielectric materials in small-scale semiconductor devices. Besides using the ion implantation damage (I/I damage) plus wet etch technique to metal oxides (including metal oxides not previously etchable by wet methods), other damage methods including lower energy, plasma-based ion bombardment, may be implemented.

Abstract: A method is provided for electroplating a gate metal or other conducting or semiconducting material directly on a dielectric such as a gate dielectric. The method involves selecting a substrate, dielectric layer, and electrolyte solution or melt, wherein the combination of the substrate, dielectric layer, and electrolyte solution or melt allow an electrochemical current to be passed from the substrate through the dielectric layer into the electrolyte solution or melt. Methods are also provided for electrochemical modification of dielectrics utilizing through-dielectric current flow.