Indentation rosettes and dislocation locking by oxygen in silicon

Abstract
The characteristics of indentation behavior are investigated for float-zone silicon crystals and Czochralski silicon crystals over a wide range of temperature. It is shown that the deformation process to produce an indentation is not influenced by the oxygen content. The wing length of the dislocation rosette around the indentation which is subjected to high-temperature annealing is shorter in Czochralski crystals than in float-zone crystals. The results are interpreted satisfactorily in terms of locking of dislocations by oxygen atoms in the former type of silicon crystal during their rearrangement.