A model for the annealing of implantation‐induced structural disorder is proposed. The phenomenon is treated on the basis of a physical analogy between point defect cluster formation/dissolution in a crystal and droplet condensation/evaporation in a saturated vapor. Explicit relationships are obtained for diffusion broadening and drift of the dopant profile upon disorder annealing. The predictions of the droplet model are compared with experimental data on boron in silicon and are found to be accurate better than within a factor of 2 in the temperature range 800–1050 °C. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.