Formation and annealing of metastable (interstitial oxygen)-(interstitial carbon) complexes in $n$- and $p$-type silicon

It is shown experimentally that, in contrast to the stable configuration of (interstitial carbon)-(interstitial oxygen) complexes (C$_i$O$_i$), the corresponding metastable configuration (C$_i$O$_i^*$) cannot be found in n-Si based structures by the method of capacitance spectroscopy. The rates of transformation C$_i$O$_i^*$ $\to$ C$_i$O$_i$ are practically the same for both $n$- and $p$-Si with a concentration of charge carriers of no higher than 10$^{13}$ cm$^{-3}$. It is established that the probabilities of the simultaneous formation of stable and metastable configurations of the complex under study in the case of the addition of an atom of interstitial carbon to an atom of interstitial oxygen is close to 50%. This is caused by the orientation dependence of the interaction potential of an atom of interstitial oxygen with an interstitial carbon atom, which diffuses to this oxygen atom.