Results were reported which indicated that the spatial separations of the vacancy and interstitial excesses, which resulted from ion bombardment, gave rise to stable voids upon annealing at 850C; even for implants where the projected range was only of the order of a few hundred nm. Such voids could be observed directly by means of transmission electron microscopy. In cases where both voids and interstitial-based defects were present at different depths, it was found that Au strongly preferred to decorate void surfaces. Therefore, Au could be used as a selective detector of open-volume defects in Si.

Direct Observation of Voids in the Vacancy Excess Region of Ion Bombarded Silicon. J.S.Williams, M.J.Conway, B.C.Williams, J.Wong-Leung: Applied Physics Letters, 2001, 78[19], 2867-9