Characterization of the Chemical and Electrical Properties of Defects at the Niobium-Silicon Interface

The nature and concentration of defects near niobium-silicon interfaces prepared with different silicon surface treatments were characterized using current-voltage (I-V), deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). All samples have H, C, O, F, and Cl chemical contamination in the Si within 50 nm of the interface and electrically active defects with activation energies of 0.147, 0.247, 0.339, and 0.556 eV above the valence band maximum (E$_{vbm}$). In all cases, the deep level defect concentration is dominated by the hole trap at E$_{vbm}$ + 0.556eV, which we assign to a Nb point defect in Si, presumably Nb$_\textrm{Si}$. This defect is present with concentrations ranging from $7\times10^{13}$ to $5\times10^{14}$ cm$^{-3}$ and depends on the final surface clean process. The optimum surface treatment used in this study is an HF etch followed by an in-situ 100 eV Ar-gas ion milling process. Higher energy ion milling is found to increase the electrically active Nb defect concentration in the Si, and increase the concentration of defects. The HF etch alone removes O from the interface, but results in significant H and F contamination, electrically-active point defect concentrations, and levels of Shockley-Reed-Hall recombination (i.e. Nb/Si Schottky diodes with an ideality factor, n, of $\approx$ 1.6). The RCA clean increases the depth and concentration of H, F, C, and Nb contamination.