Impact of Carbon Codoping on Generation and Dissociation of Boron–Oxygen Defects in Czochralski Silicon

It has been previously reported that boron–oxygen (B–O) defects in Czochralski (CZ) silicon can be effectively suppressed by carbon codoping. In this work, the kinetics of B–O defect generation and dissociation in carbon-codoped CZ (CCZ) silicon has been investigated. It was found that the activation energy for B–O defect generation in CCZ silicon is 0.56 eV, much larger than that in conventional CZ silicon. However, the activation energy for B–O defect dissociation in CCZ silicon is almost the same as that in conventional CZ silicon, viz. ∼ 1.37 eV. Moreover, the binding energy of B–O defects in both CZ and CCZ silicon is determined to be 0.93 eV. Based on these results, it is believed that carbon atoms in CCZ silicon participate in formation of B–O latent centers before transforming into recombination-active centers under illumination.