Hydrogen and its Complexes in Silicon

In this study the technique of Laplace transform (high resolution) deep level transient spectroscopy combined with the uniaxial stress method has been used to study a symmetry and the defect reconfiguration kinetics (the stress induced alignment) of some forms of hydrogen-related centres. We have confirmed the trigonal symmetry of the defect related to the isolated bond centred hydrogen. When hydrogen decorates the vacancy-oxygen pair (the A centre) the apparent defect orthorhombic symmetry is not lowered as a result of a very high hydrogen jumping rate between two unsaturated broken bonds of the vacancy. We also show that the stress-induced defect alignment in some cases can be related to the same microscopic mechanism of the hydrogen motion as it is for the diffusion process.