Angle Resolved Time-of-Flight Measurements of the Excimer Laser Induced Etching of Silicon in a Chlorine Environment

Si (100) samples have been irradiated with excimer laser pulses (λ = 308nm, pulsewidth =28ns) in a low pressure chlorine environment, at a fluence just enough to melt the surface. Time-of-flight spectra of the particles desorbed due to the laser irradiation have been measured as a function of effective chlorine pressure and desorption angle. Maxwell- Boltzmann distributions have been used to fit the measurements. The mean kinetic energy per particle increases with increasing chlorine pressure. Angular distributions of the desorbed particles are found to be cosine like at a chlorine coverage much less than a monolayer and sharply peaked along the surface normal at coverages on the order of a monolayer. Monte-Carlo simulations of the desorption process show that due to collisions between the desorbed particles the change in angular distribution can be explained. The increase in mean energy with increasing chlorine coverage however cannot be explained by gas phase collisions. A possible desorption process is suggested.