The effect of dopants on the brittle-to-ductile transition in silicon single crystals

The brittle-to-ductile transition (BDT) in boron, antimony and arsenic doped Cz silicon crystals has been experimentally studied, respectively. The BDT temperatures in antimony and arsenic doped silicon wafers are lower than that in a non-doped wafer while the BDT temperature in a boron doped wafer is almost the same as that in the non-doped wafer. The activation energy was obtained from the strain rate dependence of the BDT temperature. It was found that the values of the activation energy in the antimony and arsenic doped wafers are lower than that in the non-doped and boron doped wafers, indicating that the dislocation velocity in the antimony and arsenic doped silicon is faster than that in the non-doped while the dislocation velocity in the boron doped is the same as that in the non-doped. The effect of increasing in dislocation velocity on the BDT temperature was calculated by two-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamics simulations, indicating that the increasing in dislocation velocity decreases the BDT temperature in silicon single crystals.