A highly efficient lateral transport mechanism has been observed in stable defect layers (SDL) inp‐type silicon. The SDLs were produced by proton implantation followed by rapid thermal anneal. Photogenerated carriers have been collected at a Schottky junction several millimeters away from the generation site. This transport distance is more than 30 times the diffusion length in comparable bulk material. A model is proposed in which bending of the energy bands near the SDL expels majority carriers, leaving no substantial recombination mechanism for minority carriers trapped in the layer. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.