Rapid-thermal-anneal-based internal gettering for germanium-doped Czochralski silicon

The internal gettering (IG) effects involved with a rapid thermal anneal (RTA) in germanium-doped Czochralski silicon (GCz-Si) wafer have been investigated. It was found that germanium doping could enhance the oxygen precipitation in bulk while shrinking the denuded zone width near the surface through pre-RTA at high temperature plus low-high temperature conventional furnace anneals. Rapid cooling rate after RTA was clarified to be beneficial for oxygen precipitation for GCz-Si wafer. It was suggested that the germanium doping could increase the vacancy concentration in Cz-Si during RTA by forming the germanium-vacancy complexes. In contrast to that in Cz-Si wafer, the smaller-sized higher-density oxygen precipitates were presented in the nucleation anneals, then followed RTA pretreatment while more oxygen precipitates survived during ramping processes after nucleation anneals in the GCz-Si wafer. Enhanced heterogeneous nucleation and reduced critical radius of precipitates associated with the germanium-vacancy complexes have been proposed for the oxygen precipitation enhancement.