Oxygen Precipitation Effects in Degenerately – Doped Silicon

In this paper we report preliminary observations of oxygen precipitation in degenerately-doped silicon using etching, optical microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. It was found that n+ material was resistant to precipitation, but p+ material precipitated readily. A multistep heat treatment starting with a low temperature step to achieve a high supersaturation ratio was sucessfully used to induce precipitation in n+ material.