A series of back-side oxidation/front-side stacking-fault growth experiments have been carried out to determine the kinetic coefficients of self-interstitials in silicon. In these experiments, wet and dry oxidations of the back side of thinned silicon samples were used to inject self-interstitials from the back surfaces. The sample front surfaces were capped with oxide or nitride layers, and the concentration of self-interstitials at the capped surfaces were monitored by the growth or shrinkage of surface stacking faults. Experimental results have been analyzed using steady-state and transient models, based on the assumption that self-interstitials dominate the kinetic processes of intrinsic point defects. From these analyses, the relative recombination rates of self-interstitials at oxide and nitride boundary layers have been obtained, with an oxide layer found to absorb self-interstitials at about three times the rate of a nitride layer. The results also suggest that the surface recombination coefficients are time dependent rather than constant, as has been previously assumed. © 1991, The Electrochemical Society, Inc. All rights reserved.