Effect of the doping level on temperature bistability in a silicon wafer

The influence of the doping level on the effect of the temperature bistability in a silicon wafer upon radiative heat transfer between the wafer and the elements of the heating system is studied. Theoretical transfer characteristics are constructed for a silicon wafer doped with donor and acceptor impurities. These characteristics are compared with the transfer characteristics obtained during heating and cooling of wafers with the hole conduction (with dopant concentrations of 1015, 2 × 1016, and 3 × 1017 cm−3) and electron conduction (with impurity concentrations of 1015 and 8 × 1018 cm−3) in a thermal reactor of the rapid thermal annealing setup. It is found that the width and height of the hysteresis loop decrease with increasing dopant concentration and are almost independent of the type of conduction of the silicon wafer. The critical value of the impurity concentration of both types is 1.4 × 1017 cm−3. For this concentration, the loop width vanishes, and the height corresponds to the minimal value of the temperature jump (∼200 K). The mechanism of temperature bistability in the silicon wafer upon radiative heat transfer is discussed.