In the early years of doping of semiconductors by ion implantation, atomic displacements and residual lattice damage were considered undesirable byproducts of an otherwise controllable doping process. Steps were taken to minimize disorder during implantation and/or to remove it as completely as possible during a subsequent annealing process. In many cases, such as boron- or phosphorus-implanted silicon, annealing temperatures exceeding 900°C were necessary to achieve the desirable electrical properties. Indeed, removal of implantation damage remains a crucial issue, particularly as device dimensions shrink and the need has arisen for substantially lower processing temperatures. The advent of high-energy (MeV) implantation in specific processing steps and the increasing use of more complex (often multilayer) compound semiconductors has added further to the need to understand and control ion damage and its annealing in semiconductors.

Over the past decade, there has been a growing realization that implantation induced atomic displacements and defects can have significant advantages in processing. For example, it was realized early that ion damage, and resultant defect fluxes to and from lattice disruptions, can “getter” and trap undesirable impurities that would otherwise interfere with device operation. More recently, it has been possible to use ion beams to tailor damage structures and form amorphous-crystalline superlattices, to remove pre-existing damage and induce crystallization of amorphous layers at very low temperatures, to form ultrapure amorphous silicon for studying thermodynamic properties of this phase, or to mix films with semiconductors and form stable compounds such as silicides. Indeed, ion damage has been used to electrically isolate devices, to form optical waveguides and cavities, and to improve the junction properties of deeply doped layers. These issues are briefly reviewed in this article.