Amorphous Inclusions in Irradiated Silicon and Their Effects on Material and Device Properties

Clustered damage plays an important role in determining the electronic properties of silicon irradiated with particles having a relatively high rate of nonionizing energy loss. This damage has generally been treated as being heavily defected crystal, but substantial evidence points to amorphization. The structure of radiation-produced amorphous regions in silicon is modeled here using atomistic techniques. Those regions consist of a phase distinct from the surrounding crystal, and models based on amorphous inclusions can explain the dominance of clusters in determining key electronic properties in irradiated bulk material and devices.