Nova Cut™ process: fabrication of silicon on insulator materials

A layer transferring technique, so-called "Smart Cut"^™ or "Ion Cut" process, employing wafer bonding and a thermally implanted ion-assist layer splitting method has been successfully developed to manufacture bonding-based SOI materials. This paper demonstrates a non-thermal approach to achieve the same layer splitting and transferring effect: the use of a microwave hybrid instead of the use of heating in the implanted ion-assist layer transfer method for the fabrication of SOI materials. One of the interesting effects in the process with microwave energy is that certain physical and chemical properties of materials can be altered under microwave irradiation to create several desired effects not observed in conventional processes.