Buried amorphous‐layer impact on dislocation densities in silicon

Summary The impact of amorphous layers on dislocation densities in silicon piezoresistors was investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy and chemical etching. Mechanical bevel polishing at a shallow angle and selective etching were applied to assess the dislocation depth distributions. It was found that, despite the presence of additional defects after recrystallization, the initial presence of a buried amorphous layer reduced, after annealing, the dislocation density in the depletion region of a p–n junction, compared with the case of a shallower, surface amorphous layer.