Formation of aluminum–oxygen complexes in highly aluminum-doped silicon
We show that the carrier lifetime in highly aluminum-doped silicon regions experiences a pronounced degradation during thermal treatment at temperatures above 850 °C. The defect formation is shown to be directly linked to the simultaneous presence of oxygen and aluminum and thus can be attributed to the formation of aluminum–oxygen complexes. Temperature-dependent measurements of the defect generation rate provide evidence that the formation of the Al–O complex is thermally activated with an activation energy of 0.25 ± 0.08 eV.