Planar defects in crystalline silicon caused by self-irradiation

We have analysed by computer simulation the evolution of defects caused by self-irradiation of crystalline silicon (c-Si) at high temperatures. A classical molecular dynamics simulation (MD) was followed by defect analysis using the pixel mapping (PM) method. The incident Si ion energy was 5 keV and the target temperature was set to 1000 K. In the present simulation, we aimed to reproduce experimentally observed {3 1 1} planer defects. So far we did not observe long chain structures towards the < 1 1 0 > direction, nor remarkable platelet {3 1 1} planar defects. Nevertheless we observed a significant increase of < 1 1 0 >-oriented self-interstitial dimers and a small fraction of linear trimers, which will be the initial stages of < 1 1 0 >-rod formation. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.