Diffusion processes played a key role in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. For a long time the underlying mechanisms were thought to be analogous to those in metals, based on vacancies as the dominant lattice defects in thermal equilibrium. From the mid-sixties onwards it became clear that this picture was invalid for Si, where strongly relaxed self-interstitials were dominant and responsible for self- and Group-III- diffusion. Inter alia, this change of a paradigm led to novel concepts and to the quantitative explanation of the diffusion of so-called hybrids such as Au, Pt, and Zn in Si by the so-called kick-out mechanism.

Self-Diffusion in Silicon - Change of a Paradigm. A.Seeger: Physica Status Solidi B, 2011, 248[12], 2772-4