6533b834fe1ef96bd129e1d6

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Interstitial carbon defects in silicon. A quantum mechanical characterization through the infrared and Raman spectra.

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description

The infrared (IR) and Raman spectra of eight substitutional carbon defects in silicon are computed at the quantum mechanical level by using a periodic supercell approach based on hybrid functionals, an all electron Gaussian type basis set and the CRYSTAL code. The single substitutional C s case and its combination with a vacancy (C s V and C s SiV) are considered first. The progressive saturation of the four bonds of a Si atom with C is then examined. The last set of defects consists of a chain of adjacent carbon atoms C s i , with i = 1-3. The simple substitutional case, C s , is the common first member of the three sets. All these defects show important, very characteristic features in their IR spectrum. One or two C related peaks dominate the spectra: at 596 cm-1 for C s (and C s SiV, the second neighbor vacancy is not shifting the C s peak), at 705 and 716 cm-1 for C s V, at 537 cm-1 for C s 2 and C s 3 (with additional peaks at 522, 655 and 689 for the latter only), at 607 and 624 cm-1 , 601 and 643 cm-1 , and 629 cm-1 for SiC s 2 , SiC s 3 , and SiC s 4 , respectively. Comparison with experiment allows to attribute many observed peaks to one of the C substitutional defects. Observed peaks above 720 cm-1 must be attributed to interstitial C or more complicated defects.