Growth behavior of oxidation stacking faults and microdefects in silicon during high-temperature annealing

Abstract

Growth behavior of oxidation stacking faults (OSF’s) and microdefects (MD’s) induced in bulk Si by high-temperature annealing is studied. X-ray section topography has been mainly utilized; however, both etching and electron microscopic observation have also supported the study. Both OSF’s and MD’s have grown at high temperature in wet O2 atmospheres and their activation energies are 2.7 and 2.6 eV, respectively. However, only MD’s have grown at high temperature in N2 atmospheres atmospheres where the activation energy is 5.1 eV. The growth rate of these defects is also investigated. Based on these investigations, the roles of O2 diffusion and Si self-diffusion in the defect generation are discussed.