A criterion for the formation of stacking faults at incoherent spheroidal precipitates and application to silicon oxide in silicon

The formation of stacking faults (SF) at incoherent precipitates is modelled assuming that the SF formation is triggered by a sudden release of strain accumulated in the precipitate during its thermal history. This strain release occurs by emission of intrinsic point defects and leads to a high local supersaturation of intrinsic point defects that condense into a circular SF nucleus by the Bardeen-Herring mechanism. Expressions are derived allowing to calculate the critical precipitate size leading to SF formation as well as the size of the associated SF nucleus. The theoretical results are illustrated for silicon oxide precipitates in silicon and compared with experimental data