Molecular dynamics simulations of a dislocation-based mechanism for void formation in silicon were presented. By studying a moving solid-liquid interface in Si, the formation of dislocation loops on (111) facets consisting of coherency and anticoherency dislocations was observed. These dissipated within nanoseconds into vacancy clusters of 10 or more vacancies. These vacancy clusters could act as nucleation seeds for the experimentally observed octahedral single and double voids.

Void Formation in Melt-Grown Silicon Studied by Molecular Dynamics Simulations: from Grown-In Faulted Dislocation Loops to Vacancy Clusters. J.Pohl, K.Albe: Applied Physics Letters, 2011, 99[8], 081910