Effect of rapid thermal annealing on recombination centres in boron-doped Czochralski-grown silicon

Abstract

Rapid thermal annealing in a belt furnace results in a dramatic change of the recombination properties of boron-doped Czochralski silicon: (1) the lifetime degraded by applying a prolonged illumination at room temperature was significantly improved, (2) after subsequent dark recovery, the lifetime has a remarkably high value, and (3) the permanent recovery, by annealing at 185 °C under illumination, is enormously accelerated, and the finally achieved stable lifetime acquires a record value of 1.5 ms, as compared to 110 μs after permanent recovery of not-annealed reference samples.