《Nitrogen in Silicon》.pdf

JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS VOLUME 30. NUMBER 3 MARCH. 1959 Nitrogen in Silicon W. KAISER AND C. D. THURMOND Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., Murray Hill, New Jersey (Received August 15, 1958) Liquid silicon has been exposed to gaseous ambients containing varying concentrations of N2 or NH,. Under certain conditions, SiaN. needles may be grown on the surface and into the body of the melt. The molten zone of silicon was supported between two rods of solid silicon. We have found that the concentration of ni.troge~ in m~l~en s.ilicon which is saturated with respect to silicon nitride at a temperature near the meltmg pomt of slhcon IS around 1019 atoms per cm. During the freezing of the melt, SiaN. precipitates from the supersaturated liquid phase. The concentration of electrically active impurity states in silicon grown from melts containing around 1019 atoms per cm of nitrogen is less than 10 atoms per cm. 1. INTRODUCTION container is needed for the melt since it is suspended by surface tension between two silicon rods. Additional HE nitride Si3N4 is the only well-established solid T phase in the silicon-nitrogen system. Two other advantages are that a series of experiments can be ma