Gettering of gold and copper with implanted carbon in silicon

The gettering effects of implanted carbon for Au and Cu are studied and compared with the gettering effects of implanted oxygen, nitrogen, BF2, neon, and argon. It is demonstrated that implanted carbon forms strong gettering centers in silicon which are an order of magnitude more effective than implanted oxygen. The amount of gettered Au by implanted carbon is found to be approximately linear with dose in the range from 1015 to 1016 cm−2 and no thermal instability is observed with annealing up to 12 h at 1000 °C. It is found that the gettering effect of carbon is reduced by the addition of oxygen. This indicates that the strong gettering effect of carbon is not due to carbon-enhanced oxygen precipitation but a phenomenon of its own.