Composition of oxygen precipitates in Czochralski silicon wafers investigated by STEM with EDX/EELS and FTIR spectroscopy

In this work, we investigated the stoichiometry of oxygen precipitates in Czochralski silicon wafers. The thickness dependence of the Cliff–Lorimer sensitivity factor for the silicon/oxygen system was determined and applied for the investigation of the stoichiometry of oxygen precipitates by EDX. The results show that both plate‐like oxygen precipitates and a transitional form between plate‐like and octahedral precipi‐ tates consist of SiO₂. This was confirmed by EELS low loss spectra where the typical spectrum for amorphous SiO₂ was observed. Moreover, the absorption band of plate‐like precipitates at 1227 cm^–1 was found in the low temperature FTIR spectrum. It was demonstrated that this band can only be simulated by the dielectric constants of amorphous SiO₂. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)