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Growth kinetics of ultrathin silicon dioxide films formed by oxidation in a N2O ambient

1996; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 79; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1063/1.360985

1520-8850

Noboru Koyama, Toshiaki Endoh, Hisashi Fukuda, S. Nomura,

Thin-Film Transistor Technologies

The growth kinetics of ultrathin SiO2 films on silicon in a nitrous oxide (N2O) ambient have been investigated as a function of oxidation temperature and time. The results show that the overall growth follows the linear-parabolic law proposed by Deal and Grove [J. Appl. Phys. 36, 3770 (1965)]. The data analysis indicates that although the oxidation proceeds by surface-limited reaction in the initial stage, it rapidly changes into a diffusion-controlled reaction. This behavior is evidenced from the fact that the reaction of the N2O molecule with the silicon surface produces an interfacial nitrogen-rich layer which acts as a barrier to the oxidant passing through the SiO2/Si interface. From the Arrhenius equation for N2O oxidation, the activation energies for the linear rate constant B/A and for the parabolic rate constant B are determined to be 1.5 and 2.3 eV, respectively.