Introduction of high oxygen concentrations into silicon wafers by high-temperature diffusion

The tolerance of silicon detectors to hadron irradiation can be improved by the introduction of a high concentration of oxygen into the starting material. High-resistivity Floating-Zone (FZ) silicon is required for detectors used in particle physics applications. A significantly high oxygen concentration (>10/sup 17/ atoms cm/sup -3 /) cannot readily be achieved during the FZ silicon refinement. The diffusion of oxygen at elevated temperatures from a SiO/sub 2/ layer grown on both sides of a silicon wafer is a simple and effective technique to achieve high and uniform concentrations of oxygen throughout the bulk of a 300 mu m thick silicon wafer. (7 refs).