Real time and in situ elastic recoil detection (ERD) is applied to investigate the influence of He⁺ irradiation on the hydrogen diffusion and refinement during solid phase epitaxial (SPE) crystallization of a buried amorphous silicon layer. A thick (~2micron), buried amorphous Si layer, created by Si ion implantation, was implanted with hydrogen at 60keV at a fluence of 5x10¹⁶ at/cm². The evolution of the implanted hydrogen profile is monitored during irradiation of the film with alpha particles at 3MeV at different temperatures.

During SPE crystallization of the amorphous silicon layer the hydrogen diffuses to form a constant concentration profile in the buried amorphous layer and remains mainly confined to the amorphous layer as the crystallization process proceeds in accordance with our earlier ex situ work. The real time and in situ RDE experiments on the other hand are expected to reveal an influence of the He⁺ beam on the hydrogen diffusivity in amorphous silicon as well as on the accumulation of hydrogen at the original amorphous/crystalline interface. The effect of the He⁺ beam on the dissociation of H-Si bounds will be explored.

These experiments may demonstrate the feasibility of real time and in situ experiments in which an ion beam is used to simultaneously modify and analyze the specimen. Further development and extension of this method can lead to important advances in our understanding of various phenomena occuring during ion implantation, e.g. dynamic annealing, irradiation enhanced diffusion, etc.