Interaction of Point Defects with Interstitial Clusters, Dislocations and Impurities During in SITU Electron Irradiation of Silicon Crystals in the Electron Microscope

Damage accumulation in neon implanted silicon

“…The latter are known to be the result of the growth of rodlike defects under electron irradiation. 45,46 They are two-dimensional interstitial platelets and can be seen as interstitial-type dislocation loops lying on ͕311͖ planes in contrast to perfect loops or Frank loops that lie on ͕111͖ planes. They have been observed in the case of helium implantation in silicon at high temperature.…”

Extended Defects Formation in Si Crystals by Clustering of Intrinsic Point Defects Studied by in-situ Electron Irradiation in an HREM

“…A fundamental reason of this phenomenon is the existence of energy and/or entropy barriers for transition of self-interstitial atoms from a metastable site (IDCs) to a stable lattice site. For instance in the plane of dislocation loop the barrier is about 1.3 eV [1,2]. We assume that the height of this barrier for combined clustering of point defects depends on the initial atomic structure of the vacancy agglomerate.…”

“…This process has been studied in detail by in situ electron irradiation in a high voltage electron microscope (HVEM) at a wide temperature range between 20 and 1150 o C. Based upon clustering of very mobile Si i during electron irradiation, some of the coefficients of point defect reactions in Si (with dislocations, dopant atoms, and interfaces) have been determined [1]. An important conclusion is that the interaction coefficient of the less mobile vacancies with the real surface (or with surfaces capped with thin SiO 2 and Si 3 N 4 ) is much larger than that for interaction with Si i (up to two orders of magnitude).…”

“…Few years ago the formation of extended defects in Si crystals via aggregation of selfinterstitial atoms (Si i ) could be considered as well understood (for review of this topic, see [1]). This process has been studied in detail by in situ electron irradiation in a high voltage electron microscope (HVEM) at a wide temperature range between 20 and 1150 o C. Based upon clustering of very mobile Si i during electron irradiation, some of the coefficients of point defect reactions in Si (with dislocations, dopant atoms, and interfaces) have been determined [1].…”

“…The supersaturated self-interstitials cluster in extended defects with preferably {113}-habit planes at relatively low irradiation temperature or they interact with dislocations at elevated temperatures. The interaction of Si i with dislocations is related with the energy barrier of 1.3 eV for the transition of Si i from the metastable site in the core of dislocation to a stable lattice position in the plane of dislocation loop [1,2]. Because the displacement vectors of the {113}-defects do not correspond with the Burgers vectors of known dislocations, the concept of intermediate defect configurations (IDCs) was introduced by Tan in the early 1980s to interpret the experimental observation on the structure of extended aggregates of point defects occurring in crystals with diamond structure [3].…”