Analytical solution of the equations describing interstitial migration of impurity atoms

Abstract

An analytical solution of the equations describing impurity diffusion due to the migration of nonequilibrium impurity interstitial atoms was obtained for the case of the Robin boundary condition on the surface of a semiconductor. The solution obtained can be useful for verification of approximate numerical solutions, for simulation of a number of processes of interstitial diffusion, and for modeling impurity diffusion in doped layers with the decananometer thickness because in these layers a disequilibrium between immobile substitutionally dissolved impurity atoms, migrating self-interstitials, and migrating interstitial impurity atoms can take place. To illustrate the latter cases, a model of nitrogen diffusion in gallium arsenide was developed and simulation of nitrogen redistribution from a doped epi-layer during thermal annealing of GaAs substrate was done. The calculated impurity concentration profile agrees well with experimental data. The fitting to the experimental profiles allowed us to derive the values of the parameters that describe interstitial impurity diffusion.