The effect of rapid thermal annealing （RTA） ambient on denuded zone and oxygen precipitates in Czochralski （CZ） silicon wafers is studied in this paper. N2 and a N2/NH3 mixture are used as RTA ambient. It is demonstrated that a high density of oxygen precipitates and thin denuded zone are obtained in N2/NH3 ambient,while a relatively lower density of oxygen precipitates and thicker denuded zone are observed in N2 ambient. As the RTA duration times increased, the oxygen precipitate density increased and the denuded zone depth decreased. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS） data and atomic force microscope （AFM） results show that there RTA process,which can explain the different effect of RTA was a surface nitriding reaction during the N2/NH3 ambient ambient.
