Patent ID: 8317921

Claim:
A silicon deposition reactor, comprising: a cold-wall, single-substrate chemical vapor deposition reaction chamber having a reaction gas inlet and a reaction gas outlet defining a gas flow path therebetween, wherein the reaction chamber has radiation transparent walls, a maximum capacity of one substrate at a time, and an effective capacity of less than about 60 liters; a support for supporting a substrate within the gas flow path in the reaction chamber without a substrate boat; a container holding hydrogen gas; a source of silicon-containing gas; a container holding a mixture of oxygen diluted with a non-reactive gas, wherein the oxygen is in an amount non-explosive in the presence of any concentration of hydrogen; gas lines connecting the containers of gases and the source of silicon-containing gas to the reaction chamber; and a controller programmed to expose a substrate in the chamber to the silicon-containing gas to form a silicon-containing epitaxial layer on the substrate, the controller further programmed to subsequently stop a flow of the silicon-containing gas into the chamber and to expose the epitaxial layer in the chamber to the mixture of oxygen diluted with the non-reactive gas after stopping the flow of the silicon-containing gas.