The structure and formation of rod defects in ion-implanted silicon

Narrow defects, elongated along 〈110〉 directions, have been produced by annealing ion-implanted silicon and an analysis of their structure and morphology has been made. Four types of defect were identified having Burgers vectors of a〈100〉, a/6〈411〉, a/3〈111〉 and a/2〈110〉, and it was found that relationships existed between the habit plane, elongation direction and Burgers vector. It was concluded that the defects evolve from one another in the sequence a〈100〉→a/6〈411〉→a/3〈lll〉→a/2〈110〉 and that the various transformations occur by a shear process involving the nucleation of a particular Shockley partial dislocation having a low-energy screw orientation.