In this article, the results of a study of the diffusion mechanism of boron in silicon based on the Monte Carlo method are presented. The kickout mechanism has been examined for the case of a delta function impurity profile under both inert and oxidation conditions. It is shown that the initial conditions play a significant role in obtaining the mean migration path lengths of the atoms. The kickout mechanism in the case of an initial delta function interstitial impurity profile has been analytically examined. The atomic level computational experiments carried out in this article validate Cowern’s results of ‘‘intermittent diffusion’’ of boron in silicon and yield, the values for &lgr;0, the prefactor for the mean migration path length, which are found to lie between 0.024 and 0.035 nm. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.