Ion implantation of silicon introduces excess point defects that quickly re
combine during annealing leaving net interstitial and vacancy populations.
For higher energy implants, the separation between interstitials and vacanc
ies is larger, leading to a vacancy rich region towards the surface and an
interstitial rich region deeper in the bulk. The high supersaturation of va
cancies in the near surface region can lead to their aggregation into vacan
cy clusters or voids. In this work we have developed a continuum model for
vacancy clusters using discrete cluster sizes. Results from atomistic calcu
lations [Bongiorno , Europhys. Lett. 43, 695 (1998)] are used for the energ
etics of the cluster growth/dissolution. The model is compared to data from
Venezia [Appl. Phys. Lett. 73, 2980 (1998)] for Au indiffusion subsequent
to Si high energy implants. We found good agreement with experimental data
using this model without any tuning of the parameters. However, this model
is too complex and computationally expensive to be effectively incorporated
into continuum process simulation tools. Hence we reduced this system of d
iscrete rate equations into a two-moment model by carefully considering the
behavior of the full model under a range of conditions. The parameters of
the moment-based model follows from the full model, which in turn is based
on atomistic calculations. The resulting simple and computationally efficie
nt model is found to accurately reproduce the Au labeling experiments. (C)
2001 American Institute of Physics.