A process-induced metastable defect was detected in n-type material. The defect was found close to the wafer surface after ambient gas-flow annealing at about 900C, and subsequent cleaning. The defect gave rise to a band-gap level of Ec - Et = 0.25eV, which was observed by deep-level transient spectroscopy after reverse-bias cooling of the sample. Annealing and generation of the defect involved first-order processes. The activation enthalpies and pre-exponential factors were deduced to be 0.63eV and 1012/s for annealing, and 0.65eV and 6 x 1014/s for generation.

K.B.Nielsen, B.Holm: Journal of Applied Physics, 1995, 78[9], 5824-6