Room temperature migration of boron in crystalline silicon

We demonstrate that substitutional B in silicon can migrate even at room temperature and below, stimulated by a high interstitial flux. Once mobile B is formed, it migrates for long distances with a diffusivity >5x10(-13) cm(2)/s, until it assumes an immobile configuration with a migration length independent of the temperature. This phenomenon is present during secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analyses of B profiles, altering the profile during the analysis itself. These results shed new light on all the data based on SIMS analyses and reported in literature in the last decades.