Investigation on time-dependent behavior of resistivity in high-resistivity silicon wafers

As a cornerstone of 5G, high-resistivity silicon on insulator plays an important role in telecommunications. But it is still a great challenge to measure the resistivity of high-resistivity silicon wafer quickly and accurately. Comparing to other methods, four-point probe (4PP) techniques are considered as the preferable approach. The time-dependent behavior of high-resistivity silicon wafer were first observed during 4PP measurement and the variation of chemical elements on the wafer surface was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectrum. The resistivity of P-type silicon decreases with storage time, while that of N-type silicon increases, which can be attributed to the surface energy band bending due to the variation of the interface states during native oxidation on wafer surface. The first-principles calculation was carried out to observe the effect of interface states on the electrical properties. Based on mechanism of time-dependent behavior of high-resistivity silicon, a thermal treatment method was proposed to realize stable resistivity rapidly for high-resistivity silicon wafer.