Transmission electron microscopy investigation of oxygen precipitation in Czochralski silicon annealed under high pressure

Abstract In this paper, systematic experiments were performed to investigate the oxygen precipitation of Czochralski (CZ) silicon generated under the high pressure (1 GPa) by means of the transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Specimens were firstly treated under the high pressure of 1 GPa at 450 °C for 10 h, 957 °C for 5 h, and 1130 °C for 5 h, respectively. Compared with the specimens treated under the atmosphere, it reveals that in the specimen treated at 450 °C, a new kind of sphere-like oxygen precipitates with the diameter of about 10 nm were observed, in the specimens treated at 957 °C dislocations with oxygen precipitates were found. The experiments also points out that the polyhedron oxygen precipitates with the size of about 50 nm were generated in the specimens treated at 1130 °C. It is suggested that the high pressure can stabilize the oxygen precipitates with small sizes because of the decrease of self-interstitials and the increase of vacancies.