Implanted manganese redistribution in Si after He+ irradiation and hydrogen pulse plasma treatment

Si-Mn alloy with a Mn content of a few percent is potentially a candidate for room temperature (RT) dilute magnetic semiconductor (DMS). However, the present methods of material manufacture suffer from problems with poor Mn solubility and thermodynamical limitations. We study a non-equilibrium method in which silicon is first implanted with 160 keV manganese ions to a dose of 1 × 1016 ions/cm2 and next either irradiated with 1.5 MeV 4He+ ions from the Warsaw Van de Graaff accelerator at 400°C or treated with high-energy hydrogen plasma pulses. Conclusion from Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) examination of the samples is that both approaches lead to recovery of crystalline surface layer with manganese occupying off-substitutional sites. The potential development of the method is discussed.