Investigation of Ostwald ripening in nitrogen doped Czochralski silicon

Infrared laser scattering tomography was used to investigate Ostwald ripening in nitrogen-doped Czochralski silicon. Contrary to previous assumptions about oxide precipitation in nitrogen-doped silicon, the results clearly demonstrate that Ostwald ripening takes place during annealing of N-doped silicon wafers at 1000°C and 1100°C. The higher the nitrogen doping and the higher the temperature the faster the oxide precipitates grow and the faster they split into two fractions. One fraction is growing at the expense of the other.