TABLE OF CONTENTS The method of transmutation doping was proposed in the early 1950s [Lark-Horowitz, K., Bleuler. E., Davis, R. E. and Tendam, D. L. (1948), Lark-Horowitz, K. (1975);] and became widely used in the 1960s and 1970s for the uniform doping of silicon ingots. Several books and articles [Meese, J. M. (1978); Smirnov, L. S. (1981)] emphasized doping processes based on nuclear reactions with thermal neutrons ("neutron" doping) and ?-rays ("photonuclear" doping). The use of nuclear reactions involving charged particles was hardly even considered for transmutation doping. Only three original experimental investigations on this subject can be mentioned [Trey, F., Oberhauser, F. (1957); Dolgolenko, A. P. (1970), Lark-Horowitz, K. (1975)]. The new method of doping could not be used that time because the isotope sources did not provide sufficiently intensive particle flux and did not allow variation of the energy of particles.
Toward the end of the 1970s, the interest in transmutation doping was renewed due to the development of the acceleration techniques and intensive particle fluxes with a wide range of energies. Modern accelerators use either linear (Van de Graaf) or cyclic methods of acceleration for investigation of the transmutation doping by charged particles. Presently, transmutation doping is conducted primarily in cyclic accelerators.
This chapter contains the review of both experimental and theoretical studies on transmutation doping by charged particles carried out during the last decade. We also consider applications of transmutation doping to semiconductor device technology.
The idea of nuclear reactions involving...
