Carbon and the Kinetics of Oxygen Precipitation in Silicon

Abstract

ABSTRACTOxygen precipitation in Czochralski silicon has been studied as a function of anneal time, oxygen concentration and carbon concentration using FTIR. It was found that the oxygen supersaturation controls the precipitation kinetics in high oxygen content samples, whereas the carbon concentration is of prime importance in low oxygen content samples. The decrease in sustitutional carbon concentration after nucleation and its subsequent increase with extended growth anneals supports the view that carbon affects precipitate nucleation, but not precipitate growth. The measured oxygen solubility at 1000°C was found to depend on both the initial oxygen concentration and the initial carbon concentration.