Copper precipitation in large-diameter Czochralski silicon

The behavior of the copper precipitation in the large-diameter Czochralski silicon (Cz-Si) annealed at 1100 degrees C followed by air cooling or slow cooling was studied by means of scanning infrared microscopy (SIRM), optical microscopy, and surface photovoltage. For the air-cooled specimen, a high density of copper-precipitate colonies with strong contrast could be easily found in the A-defect zone, while in the D-defect zone of the same specimen almost no colonies could be observed through SIRM. However, optical images showed that the higher density of the etching pits induced by the copper-precipitate colonies occurred in the D-defect zone, which indicates that the copper-precipitate colonies in the D-defect zone was below the detection limitation of SIRM. This suggestion was confirmed by minority-carrier diffusion-length mapping, which revealed that the diffusion length of the minority carriers in the D-defect zone was noticeably lower than that in the A-defect zone. As for the slow-cooled specimen, big star-like colonies formed both in the D-defect zone and A-defect zone, but the diffusion length of the minority carriers in the D-defect zone was also lower than that in the A-defect zone. On the basis of experiments, it is suggested that the as-grown vacancies or their related defects in the D-defect zone enhance the nucleation of copper precipitation either under air cooling or under slow cooling, resulting in the lower diffusion length of minority carriers. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.