Coarsening of end-of-range defects in ion-implanted silicon annealed in neutral and oxidizing ambients

The evolution of End-of-Range defects during post-implantation anneals has been investigated in order to elucidate the role of the surface on the self-interstitial supersaturation near the damage region. In this work we have investigated both high dose Si+-implanted and Ge+-implanted silicon samples thermally treated under N-2, N2O and O-2 ambients, It has been found that independently of the implanted species and annealing ambient conditions the EOR damage evolves into two distinguishable categories of extended defects, namely perfect and faulted dislocation loops. The main feature observed is that a non-conservative coarsening of the two populations of defects occurs as function of time and temperature and strongly depends on the chemical state of the surface and on the defect distance from the surface. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.