METHOD FOR POLISHING GERMANIUM WAFER

Abstract

A method for polishing a germanium wafer having a surface composed of germanium, including: adding aqueous hydrogen peroxide to a first polishing slurry of an aqueous alkaline solution containing colloidal silica to make a second polishing slurry, and polishing the surface of the germanium wafer by using the second polishing slurry; wherein the aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added to the first polishing slurry in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less based on the volume of the first polishing slurry, and the polishing is performed by using the second polishing slurry. A method for polishing a germanium wafer that can make the surface roughness of a polished Ge surface be sufficiently small, and can sufficiently suppress generation of interface defects such as voids and blisters when used for a wafer to be bonded.

Claims

1-5. (canceled)

6. A method for polishing a germanium wafer having a surface composed of germanium, comprising: adding aqueous hydrogen peroxide to a first polishing slurry of an aqueous alkaline solution containing colloidal silica to make a second polishing slurry, and polishing the surface of the germanium wafer by using the second polishing slurry; wherein the aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added to the first polishing slurry in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less based on the volume of the first polishing slurry, and the surface of the germanium wafer is polished by using the second polishing slurry.

7. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 6, wherein the aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of 0.005 vol % or more and 0.05 vol % or less based on the volume of the first polishing slurry.

8. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 6, wherein the germanium wafer is a silicon single crystalline wafer having an epitaxial layer composed of germanium formed on an outmost surface thereof.

9. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 7, wherein the germanium wafer is a silicon single crystalline wafer having an epitaxial layer composed of germanium formed on an outmost surface thereof.

10. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 8, wherein the epitaxial layer composed of germanium has a thickness of 1 μm or less.

11. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 9, wherein the epitaxial layer composed of germanium has a thickness of 1 μm or less.

12. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 6, wherein the surface of the germanium wafer to be polished has surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

13. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 7, wherein the surface of the germanium wafer to be polished has surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

14. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 8, wherein the surface of the germanium wafer to be polished has surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

15. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 9, wherein the surface of the germanium wafer to be polished has surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

16. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 10, wherein the surface of the germanium wafer to be polished has surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

17. The method for polishing a germanium wafer according to claim 11, wherein the surface of the germanium wafer to be polished has surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0028] FIG. 1 is a flow diagram to show an example of the inventive method for polishing a germanium wafer;

[0029] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram to show an example of a polishing apparatus which can be used for the inventive method for polishing a germanium wafer;

[0030] FIG. 3 is a diagram to show surface roughness (RMS) of surfaces of polished germanium wafers measured in Examples 1 and 2 as well as Comparative Examples 1 and 2.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

[0031] Hereinafter, the embodiments of the present invention will be described, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

[0032] As described above, when a Ge surface is polished by previous polishing method, it is not possible to have the surface roughness sufficiently small. Therefore, particularly when it is used for a wafer to be bonded, generation of interface defects such as voids and blisters cannot be suppressed sufficiently.

[0033] Accordingly, the present inventors have specifically investigated to solve such problems, and consequently have conceived that a germanium wafer with good surface roughness can be obtained by adding hydrogen peroxide to a previous polishing slurry for polishing a silicon single crystalline wafer in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less based on the volume of the polishing slurry, and by using thereof; thereby completing the present invention.

[0034] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described specifically. Herein, an example of the inventive method for polishing a germanium wafer will be described along the flow diagram shown in FIG. 1.

[0035] As shown in FIG. 1 (a), first, a germanium wafer to be polished is prepared. Herein, the germanium wafer in the present invention means a wafer at least the surface thereof to be polished is composed of germanium. This means that the object to be polished can be a germanium single crystalline substrate that is entirely composed of a germanium single crystal, and can be a silicon single crystalline wafer having an epitaxial layer composed of germanium formed on an outmost surface thereof or a GeOI wafer in which a germanium layer is formed on a support substrate such as a silicon single crystalline wafer via an insulator film, for example.

[0036] It is possible to obtain the wafer having an epitaxial layer composed of germanium formed on an outmost surface thereof by epitaxial growth of a germanium layer on a silicon single crystalline wafer or an SOI wafer after forming a buffer layer to relax a lattice constant of a SiGe layer and so on, for example. The present invention is particularly suitable for polishing a surface of such an epitaxial layer composed of germanium.

[0037] In this case, the thickness of the epitaxial layer composed of germanium can be 1 μm or less. The present invention can be preferably performed even when the polishing stock removal is limited with the thickness of a germanium layer being thin such as 1 μm or less.

[0038] The germanium wafer to be polished can also be the one with the surface having surface roughness (RMS) of 0.20 nm or less.

[0039] When a Ge layer is produced by epitaxial growth, the epitaxial growth is generally performed on a substrate with a mirror polished surface. Accordingly, the surface of the Ge epitaxial layer originally (at a stage prior to the polishing) has fairly good surface roughness (RMS≦0.20 nm). When such a germanium wafer having a grown Ge layer is used as a wafer to be bonded, it is preferable that the surface roughness be once made smaller by slightly polishing the surface of the Ge layer in order to decrease generation of interface defects such as voids and blisters as possible. In this case, the present invention can reduce the surface roughness smaller by polishing.

[0040] Then, as shown in FIG. 1 (b), the second slurry used in polishing of a germanium wafer is prepared. In the inventive polishing method, aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added to a first polishing slurry of an aqueous alkaline solution containing colloidal silica to make a second polishing slurry, and the germanium wafer is polished by using the second polishing slurry. As the first polishing slurry, it is possible to use the one that have been previously used for polishing a silicon single crystalline substrate. The aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a concentration such that aqueous hydrogen peroxide with a concentration of 30 wt % is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less based on the volume of the first polishing slurry. By using the second polishing slurry in which aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in such a concentration for polishing, the surface roughness of the surface of a germanium wafer can be smaller by polishing. It is to be noted that the concentration of aqueous hydrogen peroxide is not limited thereto in the present invention, although the one with a concentration of 30 wt % is used herein since aqueous hydrogen peroxide is served in a concentration of 30 wt % in many cases, and it is also possible to use aqueous hydrogen peroxide with a higher concentration or a lower concentration. In these cases, it is easy to adjust the addition volume to make a concentration equivalent to the concentration defined in the present invention.

[0041] The aqueous hydrogen peroxide is preferably added in a concentration such that aqueous hydrogen peroxide with a concentration of 30 wt % is added in a volume of 0.005 vol % or more and 0.05 vol % or less based on the volume of the first polishing slurry. By adding aqueous hydrogen peroxide in such a concentration, it is possible to prepare polishing slurry that can make surface roughness further smaller. The second polishing slurry used for polishing a germanium wafer is produced as described above.

[0042] Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 1 (c), a germanium wafer is polished by using the second polishing slurry prepared in FIG. 1 (b).

[0043] Herein, a polishing apparatus which can be used for polishing of a germanium wafer will be described with referring to FIG. 2.

[0044] As shown in FIG. 2, the polishing apparatus 1 can be a single-side polishing apparatus mainly composed of a table 3 attached with a polishing pad 4, a polishing slurry supply mechanism 5, a polishing head 2, etc. It is also possible to be provided with a stage 9 to perform loading of a germanium wafer to the polishing head 2, unloading from the polishing head 2, and washing of the polishing head 2; a brush 10 for dressing the polishing pad 4; etc. as shown in FIG. 2. The polishing head 2 can be made of ceramic, for example. The material of the polishing pad 4 can be a suede material, for example.

[0045] In such a polishing apparatus 1, the surface of a germanium wafer is polished by holding a germanium wafer to be polished by the polishing head 2, moving the germanium wafer and the table 3 relatively, with the surface of the germanium wafer being pressed against the polishing pad 4, while supplying the second polishing slurry 7 onto the polishing pad 4 from the polishing slurry supply mechanism 5.

[0046] It is preferred that the second polishing slurry 7 be continuously supplied during the polishing of a germanium wafer by the polishing slurry supply mechanism 5 provided with a tank 6 to store the second polishing slurry 7, a pump 8 to send the second polishing slurry 7 in the tank 6 onto the polishing pad 4, etc. so as to continually cover the surface of the polishing pad 4 with the second polishing slurry.

[0047] As described above, the inventive polishing method can make the surface roughness of a polished Ge surface sufficiently small by polishing the surface of the germanium wafer with the second polishing slurry in which aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in the foregoing concentration, and can particularly give a germanium wafer that can sufficiently suppress generation of interface defects such as voids and blisters thereby when it is used for a wafer to be bonded. It also can polish a Ge surface only by adding small quantity of hydrogen peroxide with the foregoing concentration to the first polishing slurry, which is generally used for polishing a silicon single crystalline wafer. Accordingly, it has an advantage that a polishing apparatus for a silicon single crystalline wafer, which possesses established mass production technology, (for example, the polishing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 2) can be used intact without a particular rustproof measure. For example, it is possible to cope with polishing of a Ge surface in a large-diameter wafer with a diameter of 300 mm.

EXAMPLES

[0048] Hereinafter, the present invention will be more specifically described with reference to Examples and Comparative Examples, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

Example 1

[0049] In accordance with the flow diagram shown in FIG. 1, polishing of a germanium wafer was performed. First, the following wafers were prepared as the germanium wafer.

(Germanium Wafer)

[0050] As the germanium wafer, a germanium wafer having an epitaxial-grown Ge single crystalline layer on the outmost surface via a buffer layer was prepared. The Ge single layer has a thickness of 500 nm and the silicon single crystalline wafer has a diameter of 200 mm. The Ge single crystalline layer of this germanium wafer had a surface roughness of 0.147 nm in terms of RMS and 0.112 nm in terms of Ra.

[0051] The second polishing slurry used for polishing the foregoing germanium wafer was prepared as follows.

(The First Polishing Slurry)

[0052] As the first polishing slurry to which aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added, G3900RS (which contains colloidal silica, manufactured by Fujimi Incorporated) diluted 20-fold with pure water (23° C., pH: 9) was used.

(Aqueous Hydrogen Peroxide)

[0053] As the aqueous hydrogen peroxide to be added to the first polishing slurry, the one with a concentration of 30 wt % (% by mass) was used.

(The Second Polishing Slurry)

[0054] Four kinds of slurry were prepared by adding 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide to the first polishing slurry in concentrations of 0.005 vol %, 0.015 vol %, 0.050 vol %, and 0.100 vol % respectively, and used for polishing.

[0055] The polishing of the germanium wafer was performed by using the prepared second polishing slurry in the polishing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 2. In this case, the polishing load was set to 100 gf/cm.sup.2. The amount of the slurry supplied onto the polishing pad was set to 200 cc/min.

[0056] The surface roughness of the polished surface of the germanium wafer was measured with an AFM (atomic force microscope) in a measurement area of 30 μm×30 μm.

[0057] The surface roughness in terms of RMS (nm) and in terms of Ra (nm) measured in Example 1 and the Comparative Example 1, which will be described below, are shown in Table 1 and FIG. 3.

[0058] As is revealed from Table 1 and FIG. 3, it was confirmed that the surface roughness of germanium wafers were equivalent or smaller and better values than before polishing. As described above, it has been confirmed that by using polishing slurry in which aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less, polishing can be performed without causing large degradation of the surface roughness, and the surface roughness can be reduced to better values than before the polishing even in polishing of a Ge surface with the surface roughness being small (RMS≦0.20 nm) before polishing.

Comparative Example 1

[0059] The second polishing slurries were prepared in the same condition as in Example 1 except that the added amount of 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide to be added to the first polishing slurry was varied to 0 vol % (without addition), 0.120 vol %, 0.150 vol %, and 0.249 vol % based on the volume of the first polishing slurry. Each of them was used for polishing a germanium wafer, and the surface roughness of the polished germanium surface was measured in the same manner as in Example 1.

[0060] As is revealed from the results of Table 1 and FIG. 3, it was confirmed that the surface roughness of each germanium wafer was largely degraded compared to the value before polishing when the concentration of the aqueous hydrogen peroxide to be added is larger than 0.100 vol % based on the volume of the first polishing slurry. On the other hand, when aqueous hydrogen peroxide was not added, the polishing of the surface of a germanium wafer was scarcely proceeded.

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Added amount of Polishing Surface Surface H.sub.2O.sub.2 amount roughness roughness (vol %) (nm) RMS (nm) Ra (nm) Before — — — 0.147 0.112 polishing After Comparative 0 0 0.148 0.114 polishing Example 1 Polishing Example 1 0.005 26.8 0.123 0.090 time: 0.015 81.0 0.116 0.092 3 minutes 0.050 108.8 0.137 0.106 0.100 195.9 0.150 0.162 Comparative 0.120 228.3 0.260 0.183 Example 1 0.150 274.3 0.312 0.247 0.249 438.6 0.428 0.336

Example 2

[0061] The second polishing slurry was prepared in the same condition as in Example 1 except that G3900RS (which contains colloidal silica, manufactured by Fujimi Incorporated) diluted 10-fold with pure water (23° C., pH: 9) was used as the first polishing slurry. This was used for polishing a germanium wafer, and the surface roughness of a polished germanium wafer was measured in terms of RMS in the same manner as in Example 1. Incidentally, the surface roughness of the germanium wafer before polishing was 0.131 nm in terms of RMS.

[0062] The surface roughness in terms of RMS (nm) measured in Example 2 and the Comparative Example 2, which will be described below, are shown in Table 2 and FIG. 3.

[0063] As shown in Table 2 and FIG. 3, it was confirmed that the surface roughness of germanium wafers were equivalent or smaller and better values than before polishing. As described above, it has been confirmed that by using polishing slurry in which aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less, polishing can be performed without causing large degradation of the surface roughness, and the surface roughness can be reduced to better values than before the polishing even in polishing of a Ge surface with the surface roughness being small (RMS0.20 nm) before polishing.

Comparative Example 2

[0064] The second polishing slurries were prepared in the same condition as in Example 2 except that the amount of 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide to be added to the first polishing slurry was varied to 0 vol % (without addition), 0.120 vol %, 0.150 vol %, and 0.249 vol % based on the volume of the first polishing slurry. Each of them was used for polishing of a germanium wafer, and the surface roughness of the polished germanium surface was measured in the same manner as in Example 2. Incidentally, the surface roughness of the germanium wafer before polishing was 0.131 nm in terms of RMS.

[0065] As a result, it was confirmed that the surface roughness of each germanium wafer was largely degraded compared to the value before polishing when the concentration of the aqueous hydrogen peroxide to be added was larger than 0.100 vol % based on the volume of the first polishing slurry as is revealed from Table 2 and FIG. 3. On the other hand, when aqueous hydrogen peroxide was not added, the polishing of the surface of a germanium wafer was scarcely proceeded, and the surface roughness was deteriorated.

TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Added amount Surface of H.sub.2O.sub.2 Polishing roughness (vol %) amount (nm) RMS (nm) Before — — — 0.131 polishing After Comparative 0 0 0.133 polishing Example 2 Polishing Example 2 0.005 20.5 0.112 time: 0.015 78.0 0.101 3 minutes 0.050 112.8 0.126 0.100 204.0 0.160 Comparative 0.120 238.5 0.230 Example 2 0.150 299.9 0.335 0.249 455.4 0.458

[0066] It is to be noted that the present invention is not limited to the foregoing embodiment. The embodiment is just an exemplification, and any examples that have substantially the same feature and demonstrate the same functions and effects as those in the technical concept described in claims of the present invention are included in the technical scope of the present invention. For example, the inventive polishing method is performed by adding aqueous hydrogen peroxide with the concentration of 30 wt % in Examples 1 and 2 for the sake of simplicity. However, it is possible to use aqueous hydrogen peroxide with a concentration other than 30 wt % as a matter of course. In this case, aqueous hydrogen peroxide may be added in a concentration such that 30 wt % aqueous hydrogen peroxide is added in a volume of more than 0 vol % and 0.1 vol % or less.