The effect of carbon and boron on the accumulation of vacancy-oxygen complexes in silicon

Abstract

By means of IR-absorption measurements the dose dependencies of the concentrations of vacancy-oxygen complexes (VO), interstitial oxygen atoms (Q_I), substitutional carbon atoms (C_S) and interstitial carbon-oxygen complexes (C_IO_I) in n- and p-type silicon irradiated with 1.1 MeV electrons have been investigated. The observed increase of the production rate of VO-complexes with the rise of carbon and boron atoms concentrations (these impurities act as sinks for silicon interstitial atoms) has been explained in terms of annihilation of the vacancies and interstitials on the oxygen atoms. The results obtained show that boron atoms are more effective sinks than carbon atoms for the interstitial silicon atoms. That seems to be connected not only with the higher probability of boron injection into interstitial position but also with the further capture of interstitial silicon atoms on the interstitial boron. i.e. with the interstitial cluster formation.