Effect of a vacuum ion gauge on the contamination of a hydrogen‐passivated silicon surface

The effect of operating a vacuum ion gauge on carbonaceous (C) contamination of a hydrogen (H)‐passivated Si surface before epitaxial growth was investigated. The dependence of C contamination on the residence time in the loading chamber, tlc, was determined with or without operating a vacuum ion gauge. The results showed that C contamination of a H‐passivated surface was greatly increased by use of the ion gauge. With ion gauge operation in a vacuum of 1×10−6–1×10−7 Torr in the loading chamber, the configuration of the ion gauge and upside down‐stacked wafers is shown to be a dominant factor of C contamination of the Si surface. The presence of C contaminants could be determined by observing SiC diffraction patterns using in situ reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED), since the C contaminants reacted with Si to produce single crystalline SiC at a temperature as high as 850 °C. The RHEED patterns demonstrated that the single crystalline SiC had a zinc‐blende structure. Single crystalline SiC...