CLASSICAL AND RAPID THERMAL-PROCESS EFFECTS ON OXYGEN PRECIPITATION IN SILICON

We report observations on the effects of Rapid Thermal Annealing (RTA) on oxygen and carbon content of different mono and multicrystalline s ilicon materials. From the comparison between the resulting effects of conventional and rapid thermal annealing, we can deduce that the incr ease of the concentration of interstitial oxygen after a short anneali ng is due to the dissociation and dissolution of some microprecipitate s in silicon, which is significantly affected by the initial oxygen co ntent, thermal history, defects and impurity content.