The influence of annealing ambient on the shrinkage kinetics of oxidation-induced stacking faults in silicon

Abstract
The shrinkage behavior of oxidation-induced stacking faults (OSF’s) during an annealing in nitrogen, argon, and hydrogen is studied as a function of both annealing temperature and time. Independent of the used gas atmosphere, the OSF shrinkage rate is characterized by an activation energy of 4.9 eV. To explain the different experimental results, an interstitial model for the stacking fault shrinkage is proposed.