Nucleation of hydrogen-induced platelets in silicon

Abstract

Hydrogen-induced platelet generation in single-crystal silicon was investigated as a function of the Fermi energy. Platelet formation is observed only for Fermi-level positions of ${E}_{C}\ensuremath{-}{E}_{F}<~0.3\mathrm{eV}.$ With decreasing ${E}_{C}\ensuremath{-}{E}_{F}$ the platelet density increases monotonically to $2.45\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{17}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}3}.$ Experiments performed on electrically compensated silicon demonstrate that the formation of hydrogen-induced platelets is solely controlled by the Fermi energy.