Patent ID: 7588997

Claim:
A method of removing contaminants when fabricating a thin semiconductor film comprising: implanting ions by bombarding a face of a substrate comprising a semiconductor material to form a concentrated layer of the implanted ions at a predetermined mean depth in the substrate, the concentrated layer and the face of the substrate defining a thin film therebetween; bringing the face of the substrate into intimate contact with a stiffener; trapping contaminants of the thin film in the concentrated layer by heat treating the substrate such that the heat treatment does not split the substrate at the concentrated layer; after trapping the contaminants of the thin film in the concentrated layer, detaching the thin film from the substrate by splitting the substrate at the concentrated layer; after splitting the substrate at the concentrated layer, withdrawing a perturbed contaminated zone of a fractured surface of the thin film that contains contaminants from the concentrated layer; and annealing the thin film to the stiffener at a temperature of at least about 1000° C. after the withdrawing of the perturbed contaminated zone.