The problem of hydrogenating this material without causing surface degradation was solved by exposing the surface to a plasma via a thin SiNx(H) cap. This layer was permeable at the hydrogenation pressure of 250C, but was impermeable to P or PH3. It was found that shallow acceptors were heavily passivated, whereas shallow donors were only weakly affected. The presence of acceptors impeded D in-diffusion. Thus, D diffusion under the same conditions occurred to a depth of 0.018mm in p-type (2 x 1016 Zn/cm3) material, but to a depth of 0.035mm in n-type (S, Sn) material.

W.C.Dautremont-Smith, J.Lopata, S.J.Pearton, L.A.Koszi, M.Stavola, V.Swaminathan: Journal of Applied Physics, 1989, 66[5], 1993-6