The characterization of indium desorbed Si surfaces for low temperature surface cleaning in Si molecular beam epitaxy

To investigate the feasibility of using indium to replace Ga as an agent for silicon surface cleaning at lower substrate temperature in ultrahigh vacuum, we have examined the in-diffusion of indium and the surface defects introduced into silicon for various indium desorption processes. TEM, SEM, AES, SIMS, EDAX, and DLTS, as well as spreading resistance measurements, were used to characterize the samples. For the dynamic desorption case, which simulated the actual cleaning procedure, no significant surface defects were identified, nor was there any indium in the near surface region of the silicon substrate.