We investigated the generation and characterization of thermally induced defects during silicon epitaxy. To induce thermal slip into test wafers, steep radial and axial temperature gradients were introduced in 150mm diameter test wafers during the temperature ramp-up in a single wafer reactor. Epitaxial layers were deposited by vapor phase epitaxy at similar to 1100degreesC using trichlorosilane as a precursor gas. The wafers were characterized using laser light scatter surface maps, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, double crystal X-ray topography, and defect etching. Dislocations and stacking faults in densities of up to 5 x 10(7) cm(-2) were found inside a distinct ring-shaped pattern on the wafer surface, compared to significantly lower densities (similar to 10(2) cm(-2)) outside of the ring pattern region. The distribution of the observed surface light scatter points at the epitaxial layer surface corresponds to the ring-shaped region of thermal slip. In certain cases, the hillocks were not detected using commonly employed detection methods like laser light scattering. We attribute the surface features to the deposition parameters employed. The detection capability for encountered defects is discussed in this paper. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.