Nucleation and growth of faceted voids in silicon crystals

The growth of small faceted voids (vacancy clusters) is retarded since it r equires 2D nucleation at cluster facets. The vacancy agglomeration is remar kably affected by the resulting time lag in production of larger voids. At low starting vacancy concentration and/or high cool rate the void formation is suppressed; the vacancies go mostly to clusters. (C) 1999 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.