Light impurities (O, H, C, N) in silicon

Major advances include experiments, modeling and ab initio theory that allow a mechanism to be formulated for the formation of relatively large oxygen clusters, including thermal donor defects in Czochralski Si annealed at low temperatures; observations of weak infrared vibrational absorption that correlate with these clusters; partial H passivation of defects with multiple energy levels, including metals and thermal donors; the observation of the greater stability of gate oxide interfaces passivated with deuterium rather than hydrogen; and the use of grown-in carbon atoms to trap and thereby inhibit self-interstitial interactions in boron doped layers of device structures.