Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 July 2004
Birefringence induced by crystal defects has been successfully
characterized as standard ingot form in Si crystals by using a
scanning infrared polariscope. It is found that there is a
certain amount of defect-induced birefringence besides the
birefringence due to the optical anisotropy in CZ Si crystals.
If the infrared probing light is introduced to the
crystallographic $\langle100\rangle$ directions, then the
defect-induced birefringence is clearly observed with no
influence of the optical anisotropy in cubic crystals. Although
it is difficult to evaluate the absolute value of crystal defects,
it is demonstrated that the SIRP measurement is very useful to
nondestructively characterize the quality of Si crystals as
standard ingot form without any special treatment.