An atomistic simulation was made of the Ostwald ripening of extrinsic defects (clusters, {113} defects and dislocation loops) which occurred during annealing of ion implanted Si. The model describes the capture and emission of Si interstitial atoms to and from extrinsic defects of sizes up to thousands of atoms and includes a loss term due to the flux of interstitials to the recombining surface. Key input parameters of the simulation were the variations of the formation energy and of the capture efficiency with the size of the different defects. This model showed that the kinetics of the well-known dissolution of {113} defects was only driven by the recombination efficiency at the surface and the distance from the defects to the sample surface. This model was subsequently used to study defect evolution in low and ultra low energy B implanted Si during annealing. Defect dissolution occurred earlier and at smaller sizes in the ultra low energy regime. Consequently, transient enhanced diffusion was mostly characterized by a so-called component which occurred at the very beginning of the anneal.

Modeling of the Ostwald Ripening of Extrinsic Defects and Transient Enhanced Diffusion in Silicon. A.Claverie, B.Colombeau, F.Cristiano, A.Altibelli, C.Bonafos: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 2002, 186[1-4], 281-6