Formation of light-emitting defects in silicon by swift heavy ion irradiation and subsequent annealing

•FZ- and CZ-Si wafers irradiated with Xe 167 MeV swift heavy ions were investigated.•Strong defect-related IR photoluminescence was originated from the as-irradiated wafers at low temperatures.•PL intensity strongly increase after low-temperature annealing at 400 °C. High-resistivity floating-zone silicon (FZ-Si) and n-type (4.5 Ohm·cm) Czochralski silicon (CZ-Si) wafers were irradiated at room temperature with 167 MeV Xe ions to fluences ranging from 5·1010 to 5·1011 cm−2. Temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL) measurements were performed to characterize the as-implanted and annealed silicon wafers. It was found that irradiation with swift heavy ions (SHI) leads to the formation of light-emitting defects in both types of silicon wafers. Low-temperature annealing (400 °C) leads to a significant increase of the photoluminescence intensity. In addition, the photoluminescence decreases for increasing measurement temperatures and eventually quenching is observed for temperatures larger than 80 K. The type of silicon wafer (FZ or CZ) does not significantly influence the defect-related light-emitting properties. This implies that low fluence SHI irradiation is a promising method for creation of light-emitting defects in silicon.