Early Stages of Oxygen Precipitation in Silicon

While the discovery that heating oxygen-rich silicon to around 450°C produces electrically active defects dates back to 1954, the details of the processes by which the donors and other defects are generated remain obscure today. The fact that there is only one oxygen atom in about ten thousand silicon atoms means that it is difficult to devise experiments to see what happens during the early stages of oxygen precipitation when complexes of two, three or four oxygen atoms are formed. But important new findings are emerging from the careful monitoring of the changes in IR lattice absorption spectra over long time periods, observation of the growth of new bands that are correlated with electronic IR data, and high resolution ENDOR studies. Better samples are also becoming available for study, and great advances have been made in modelling techniques. §The emphasis of the present book is on the fundamental issues of oxygen diffusion, the properties of small oxygen aggregates, and the effects of H, N, and C on oxygen precipitation. With extended reviews by G.D. Watkins, R.C. Newman, J.L. Lindstrom, C.A.J. Amerlaan, M. Spaeth, V. Merkevich, J. Weber, R. Jones, P. Deak, S.K. Estreicher, S.T. Pantelides, M. Suezawa, U. Gosele, K. Sumino, B. Pajot and E.C. Lightowlers in addition to 26 contributed papers, the proceedings contain the latest results on the vibrational spectroscopy of thermal donors, the enhanced diffusion of oxygen dimers, magnetic resonance, theoretical modelling, and the influence of H on oxygen diffusion. §Audience: All researchers working in the field of silicon technology, especially those dealing with defects and defect control in Czochralski silicon.