Relationship between grown-in defects and thermal history during CZ Si crystal growth

An abrupt change of the crystal growth rate at temperatures in the range 1150–1080°C affects the annihilation or the agglomeration of grown-in defects such as flow pattern defects (FPD), crystal originated particles (COP), laser scattering defects (LSTD) and the defects measured by an optical precipitate profiler (OPPDs). Moreover, it is demonstrated that the densities of FPDs and LSTDs correlate with each other, and also with the cooling rate in such a temperature range. These relationships were investigated by growing several silicon single crystals in 10 kinds of hot-zone (HZ) configurations designed by using a numerical simulation. The cooling rate from 1412°C, the melting point of silicon, to 1150°C does not seem to be so important for the generation or the annihilation of these defects.