Abstract
This paper presents results of selective Si epitaxial growth at 800 °C on (100) silicon wafers with oxide patterns by ultralow-pressure chemical vapor deposition using pure SiH 4 and SiH 4 /H 2 . Prior to deposition, the patterned wafers were in situ argon plasma sputtered at -100 V dc bias to remove native oxide. About 800 Å of Si epitaxial layer can be grown selectively on the exposed silicon windows using 3.5 mTorr of SiH 4 . By flowing H 2 with SiH 4 during deposition, selective epitaxial layers can be grown to a thickness of 1300 Å before polycrystalline silicon begins to nucleate on the SiO 2 surfaces. The epitaxial films were examined by scanning electron microscopy and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and found to be of high structural quality. H 2 was found to significantly improve the epi/substrate interface and the surface morphology of the epitaxial layers.