A model is presented for the growth and dissolution of iron precipitates at oxygen-related defects in silicon during thermal processing. The heterogeneous nucleation of iron is taken into account by special growth and dissolution rates, which are inserted into a set of modified chemical rate equations. This approach allows us to calculate the size distribution of iron precipitates and the residual iron concentration. By comparing the simulated results with experimental ones, it is proven that this model can be used to estimate the internal gettering efficiency of iron under a variety of processing conditions.
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