Study of Copper Precipitation Behavior in Silicon Single Crystals

The precipitation behavior of copper in silicon single crystals containing different amounts of oxygen has been investigated within the temperature range of 900~176 Precipitation which occurs during the cooling period on structural defects and at random sites throughout the bulk crystal has been detected by infrared transmission microscopy. The shape and crystallographic relationship of the precipitate as related to the silicon matrix was determined. The reliabil ity of the method of copper decoration for the determination f low dislocation densities in the presence of oxygen was investigated by comparing copper decoration pictures with x-ray diffraction photomicrographs. Dislocations in sil icon can be invest igated effec-t ively by the copper decoration method as intro-duced by Dash (1). In apply ing this method to the study of imperfect ions in Si we have found that the precipitat ion behavior of Cu is strongly inf luenced