Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
A new optical transition with a no-phonon energy of 0.615 eV discovered in electron-irradiated silicon grown by the Czochralski technique is investigated, revealing metastable properties of the related defect. The investigation is focused on the optical properties of the transition and its associated structure and on the mechanism governing the change of defect configuration. The transformation of the defect to the metastable state is suggested to be induced by excitonic Auger recombination. A pseudo-donor model is presented as an explanation of the optical spectrum.