Grown-in microdefects in silicon as a guide to the properties of point defects

The concentration field of self-interstitials and vacancies in silicon depends on at least 10 parameters. But for the specific case of the growth of crystals deep in the interstitial mode, it is primarily sensitive to only the 3 parameters of the self-interstitial transport: the melting point diffusivity D-im, the migration energy E-id and the drift energy epsilon(i). A fit for these parameters can be obtained via the shape of A-swirl regions in quenched crystals. Using this approach, the resulting value for D-im is found to be about 1.5x10(-4) cm(2)/s (which considerably lower than a commonly assumed value) while ei is about 4 to 8 eV (a surprisingly strong uphill drift). This conclusion is still tentative and subject to some uncertainty related to a possible effect of carbon.