Lithium-ion drifting: Application to the study of point defects in floating-zone silicon

The use of lithium-ion (Li+) drifting to study the properties of point defects in p-type Floating-Zone (FZ) silicon crystals is reported. The Li+ drift technique is used to detect the presence of vacancy-related defects (D defects) in certain p-type FZ silicon crystals. SUPREM-IV modeling suggests that the silicon point defect diffusivities are considerably higher than those commonly accepted, but are in reasonable agreement with values recently proposed. These results demonstrate the utility of Li+ drifting in the study of silicon point defect properties in p-type FZ crystals. Finally, a straightforward measurement of the Li+ compensation depth is shown to yield estimates of the vacancy-related defect concentration in p-type FZ crystals.