Oxygen gettering in thin silicon epitaxial films

Thin (1 μm) autoepitaxial films of silicon produced by decomposition of SiH4 have been studied. The films were grown on substrates doped with boron (NB = 4&middot1016 at/cm3) and with diffused regions of antimony (NSb = 4&middot1018 at/cm3) which had an impurity defect density 106 def/cm3. Gettering of impurity defects by stressed regions in the crystal lattice which are the boundaries of local SiO2 films and accumulations of oxygen in the substrate was observed. The conditions for reproducibility (arrangement of defects and oxygen concentration) of the intrinsic getter were determined.