Carbon effect on the survival of vacancies in Czochralski silicon during rapid thermal anneal

Rapid thermal anneal (RTA) at high temperatures can be employed to introduce vacancies to control oxygen precipitation (OP) behavior in Czochralski (CZ) silicon. Such excessive vacancies survive from the recombination of silicon-interstitials and vacancies (V-I recombination) during the RTA. In this work, we aim to elucidate the carbon effect on the survival of vacancies in CZ silicon during the high temperature RTA by means of gold diffusion in combination with deep-level transient spectroscopy. It is revealed that the existence of ∼1017 cm−3 carbon atoms significantly increases the amount of survival vacancies in the form of vacancy-oxygen (VOm, m ≥ 2) complexes in CZ silicon when subjected to the 1250 °C/60 s RTA. Moreover, such an increase in the number of vacancies becomes more significant with the increase in the cooling rate of RTA. The density functional theory calculations suggest that the V-I recombination is to some extent unfavorable as a carbon atom is close to the silicon-interstitial. Alternatively, it is believed that the substitutional carbon (Cs) atoms tend to trap the silicon-interstitials, thus forming Ci complexes (Cs + I → Ci) in CZ silicon during the RTA. In this context, the V-I recombination is suppressed in a manner, leading to the survival of more vacancies, thus generating more VOm complexes. Furthermore, after the 1250 °C/60 s RTA, the oxide precipitate nucleation based on the VOm complexes is more significant in carbon-rich CZ (CCZ) silicon than in the conventional CZ counterpart. Hence, when subjected to the same OP anneal consisting of the nucleation anneal at 650 or 800 °C for 4 h and the subsequent growth anneal at 1000 °C for 16 h, CCZ silicon possesses a higher density of bulk microdefects and therefore stronger internal gettering capability than CZ silicon. However, the nucleation temperature for OP should be carefully selected as 650 °C for CCZ silicon in order to form an oxide precipitate-free denuded zone.