Gigantic uphill drift of vacancies and self-interstitials in silicon

Point defect transport in a growing crystal includes a drift along the temperature gradient, G, at a velocity αG. It was not clear if the drift is negligible or strong in silicon crystal growth. It is now found that reported microdefect patterns in crystals grown with a temporarily halt provide a clear evidence in favour of a strong (even gigantic) drift of both kinds of intrinsic point defects. The drift coefficients αV (for vacancies) and αI (for self-interstitials) are deduced by fitting the simulating defect profiles to the observed location of halt-induced interstitial region immersed into a vacancy-type crystal.