Dislocation-induced variation of generation kinetics of boron-oxygen complexes in silicon

The behaviors of light-induced degradation (LID) using quasi-single-crystalline (QSC) silicon have been demonstrated. It is found that the dislocations, the main defect in QSC silicon, can significantly influence the generation kinetics of B-O complexes that are responsible for the LID effect. Compared to dislocation-poor samples, higher activation energy of 0.57 +/- 0.02 eV for the B-O complex generation in dislocation-rich silicon has been obtained, and meanwhile, the pre-exponential factor is two orders of magnitude higher. It is believed that the dislocation-related electronic states charged with holes can cause an energy potential barrier for the capture of single-positive holes that is required for the transformation of B-O complexes from latent centers to immediate transient centers. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.