Helium and Hydrogen Induced Growth of Microcavities in Silicon; Application to Gas And Impurity Collection
AbstractThermal helium desorption spectrometry and positron beam analysis have been used to monitor the growth of helium vacancy clusters during room temperature helium irradiation of silicon and during subsequent annealing to 1300 K. Experimental results obtained with hydrogen irradiation show that also hydrogen can be used to create cavities. There is a rather sharp threshold dose for creating cavities that will survive 1300 K annealing. It appears that positrons form a sensitive probe for the trapping and release of impurities inside the cavities. Results of atomistic calculations are used to discuss thermal stability of helium vacancy complexes. The results are related to recent impurity gettering studies based on impurity trapping at helium induced gettering centers.