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The drive to create smaller microelectronic devices has brought renewed interest to the physics of defect diffusion, interactions, and kinetics. Positron methods are used to determine concentrations and depth profiles of vacancy-type defects, and therefore complement other techniques which are sensitive to interstitials or to extended defects.
The figure shows a heated sample stage with which we can anneal samples in situ while collecting positron spectra, and therefore dynamically investigate defect migration, clustering and dissolution, while it is happening!
In recent years it has become possible to identify chemical elements surrounding the site at which a positron annihilates. This technique is especially applicable to investigations of defect-impurity interactions, an understanding of which is critical to the development of new semiconductor doping technologies.
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