A study was made here of the relative stability of perfect and faulted dislocation loops formed during annealing of pre-amorphized Si. In particular, the effect of the annealing ambient (N, O) on their thermal evolution was investigated. Transmission electron microscopic analysis showed that after short annealing times faulted dislocation loops were the more stable defects if the ripening process was conservative or if the surface acts as a sink for Si interstitial atoms. On the contrary, when the surface injects Si atoms (oxidizing conditions) or for long annealing times under conservative conditions, perfect dislocation loops were stabilized. The formation energies of these defects were calculated as a function of their sizes and it was found that a stability inversion occurred for sizes of about 80nm. All the experimental results presented here were explained by making use of these calculations.

Influence of the Annealing Ambient on the Relative Thermal Stability of Dislocation Loops in Silicon. F.Cristiano, B.Colombeau, J.Grisolia, B.de Mauduit, F.Giles, M.Omri, D.Skarlatos, D.Tsoukalas, A.Claverie: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 2001, 178[1-4], 84-8