Over-coordinated oxygen in the interstitial carbon–oxygen complex

The interstitial carbon–oxygen complex is one of the most prominent defects formed in e-irradiated Cz-Si containing carbon. Stress alignment investigations have shown that the oxygen atom only perturbs the carbon interstitial but the lack of a high frequency oxygen mode has been taken to imply that the oxygen atom is over-coordinated. Local vibrational mode spectroscopy and ab initio modeling are used to investigate the defect. We find new modes whose oxygen isotopic shifts, along with the piezoscopic stress-energy tensor support the trivalent model, thus providing evidence for oxygen over-coordination.