Annihilating Pores in the Desired Layer of a Porous Silicon Bilayer with Different Porosities for Layer Transfer

Abstract

A silicon layer that is tens of micrometers thick on a handle substrate is desired for applications involving power devices, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), highly efficient silicon solar cells (<50 µm), etc. In general, if the initial silicon layer obtained from the layer transfer process using the etch-stop or ion-cut techniques, which may provide very accurate thickness control, is too thin, then additional epitaxial growth is required to increase the thickness of the silicon layer. However, epitaxial growth under strict predeposition conditions is a time-consuming and expensive process. On the other hand, producing porous silicon via anodization in a hydrofluoric acid solution offers an efficient way to control the dimensions of the generated pores directly on the nano- or macroscale via the current density. When sintering the porous layer via high-temperature argon annealing, the porosity of the porous layer determines whether this porous layer can serve as a device layer or a separation layer. In addition, it is clearly easier to create a transferred layer ten of micrometers thick via anodization than by ion implantation and/or epitaxial deposition.