Carbon implantation process and carbon ion precursor composition

1. A process for implanting carbon ions into a workpiece, the process comprising:

supplying a mixture of a carbon oxide gas and a methane gas to an ion source;

ionizing the carbon oxide gas and the methane gas with the ion source at a stoichiometry effective to create a feedstream consisting essentially of plasma consisting essentially of ionized carbon and a byproduct of water;

extracting the ionized carbon within the plasma to form an ion beam; and

exposing the workpiece to the ion beam to implant the ionized carbon into the workpiece.

2. The process of claim 1 , wherein the carbon oxide gas is selected from the group of gases consisting of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon suboxide, and combinations thereof.

3. The process of claim 1 , wherein ionizing the carbon oxide gas and the methane gas produces greater amounts of the ionized carbon than are created using the carbon oxide gas without the methane gas.

4. The process of claim 1 , wherein the methane gas in the mixture is at a molar excess of 70% or less relative to the carbon oxide gas.

5. The process of claim 1 , wherein the methane gas in the mixture is at a molar excess of 50% or less relative to the carbon oxide gas.

6. The process of claim 1 , wherein the methane gas in the mixture is at a molar excess of 30% or less relative to the carbon oxide gas.

7. The process of claim 1 , further comprising evacuating the water from the ion source.

8. A process of implanting carbon ions into a workpiece, comprising

utilizing an ion implantation apparatus comprising an ion source adapted to ionize a process gas into an ion beam, and a mass analyzer adapted to pass through only selected species of said ion beam;

supplying a stoichiometric mixture of a carbon oxide gas and a methane gas to the ion source;

ionizing the carbon oxide gas and methane gas to produce a feedstream consisting essentially of plasma consisting essentially of carbon ions and a byproduct of water vapor;

using the mass analyzer to remove unwanted species from the ion beam; and

implanting the carbon ions into the workpiece.

9. The process of claim 8 , wherein the carbon oxide gas is a carbon dioxide gas, and the mixture of the carbon dioxide gas and the methane gas are in a 1:1 stoichiometric amount relative to one another.

10. The process of claim 9 , wherein the methane gas is at a molar excess relative to the carbon dioxide gas of 70% or less.

11. The process of claim 9 , wherein ionizing the mixture produces water vapor, and the process further comprises removing the water vapor from the ion source by vacuum.

12. The process of claim 8 , wherein the carbon oxide gas is selected from the group of gases consisting of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon suboxide, and combinations thereof.

13. An ion implantation system, comprising:

an ion source for generating an ion beam;

a beamline for transporting the ion beam along a beam path; and

a workpiece support for scanning a workpiece in the beam path of the ion beam for implanting ions into the workpiece;

said ion implantation system further comprising:

a first gas source for delivering a carbon ion precursor composition in the form of a carbon oxide gas to said ion source;

a second gas source for delivering a second gas in the form of a methane gas; and

a controller coupled to said first and second gas sources for controlling a flow of gas therefrom to meter a 1 to 1 stoichiometric amount of carbon oxide and methane gases, respectively, to the ion source, wherein the ion sources is configured to produce a feedstream consisting essentially of plasma consisting essentially of carbon ions and a byproduct of water vapor.

14. The ion implantation system of claim 13 , wherein the carbon oxide gas is selected from the group of gases consisting of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon suboxide, and combinations thereof.