Observations of Individual Dislocations and Oxygen Precipitates in Silicon with a Scanning Electron Beam Method

Abstract

Individual edge dislocations created by heat treating indentations on the n side of a shallow phosphorus-diffused silicon p-n junction have been detected by the scanning electron beam technique. The width of contrast produced by edge dislocations is close to 1 μ in agreement with expectation. The contrast mechanism is discussed and can be explained by enhanced recombination at dislocations with an edge component. Furthermore, it is shown that oxygen precipitates in silicon can be displayed as well as individual dislocations introduced by twisting the crystal.