The Influence of Nitrogen on Dislocation Locking in Float-Zone Silicon

Dislocation locking by nitrogen impurities has been investigated in float-zone silicon with nitrogen concentrations of 2.2 x 1015cm-3 and 3 x 1014cm-3. The stress required to unlock dislocations pinned by nitrogen impurities was measured as a function of annealing time (0 to 2500 hours) and temperature (550 to 830ºC). For all conditions investigated the locking effect was found to increase linearly with annealing time before saturating. It is assumed that the rate of increase of unlocking stress with annealing time is a measure of transport of nitrogen to the dislocation core. This rate of increase was found to depend linearly on nitrogen concentration, which is consistent with transport by a dimeric species, whose activation energy for diffusion is approximately 1.4eV. The saturation unlocking stress has been found to be dependent on the nitrogen concentration. Additionally, the temperature dependence of the stress required to move dislocations immobilised by nitrogen impurities has been studied. By assuming a value for the binding energy of the nitrogen to the dislocation, the density of the locking species at the dislocation core has been calculated.