The Influence of Point Defect Concentrations on the Diffusion of Gold in Silicon

The diffusion of gold in silicon is described by the kick-out and dissociative mechanism. The resulting set of four coupled partial differential equations is completely solved numerically. Splitting the self-diffusion coefficients, we find that the concentration of substitutional gold is strongly influenced by the equilibrium concentrations of self-interstitials and vacancies. As a result of our work, we can give an upper boundary for the value of the equilibrium concentration of vacancies and a lower boundary for the diffusivity of vacancies.