(Invited) Oxygen in Silicon: End of the Story?

Abstract

Oxygen in silicon is investigated since decades. Although, the goals of research and development in this field changed over the years it is and it will remain an ongoing topic which is mainly driven by defect and impurity control in crystal growth and device processing. Examples from our own published results about ab initio calculation for understanding of the initial stages of oxygen precipitation, investigation of the stoichiometry of oxygen precipitates, elucidation of the gettering mechanism of Cu at oxygen precipitates, and N-doping for the homogeneous oxygen precipitation during high temperature annealing in wafers optimized with respect to voids will be presented.

Study on defect annealing potential and bulk micro defect formation using high temperature RTA conditions for Cz‐grown silicon

“…Future experiments are therefore necessary at varying temperatures of the stabilization test (e.g., 1100 and 1120 8C). 3 RTA processed MCZ -Si The GOI deterioration in NH 3 RTA processed voidrich Si wafers found by Shin [2] originates from the generation of "nano-voids" due to agglomeration of supersaturated vacancies. This effect was also studied in defect optimized MCZ Si wafers which exhibit nearly no voids at all.…”

“…RTA can dissolve small defects like voids or small-sized precipitates and store vacancies in a specific depth from the surface. This is achieved via elevated temperatures $1300 8C and, respectively, via NH 3 dissociation at the surface at temperatures >1150 8C [2][3][4].…”