Activation energy of thermally grown silicon dioxide layers on silicon substrates

Abstract

A detailed numerical consideration is used as basic approach for calculating profiles of activation energy versus oxide thickness for various temperatures between 780 and 930 °C. Results presented here are intentionally not based on models of diffusion and reaction kinetics to avoid introducing correction terms due to the expansion of theory still under discussion. The statistical calculation gives the mean activation energy of 2.01 eV with standard deviation of 0.10 eV, very close to the overall activation energy of 2.05 eV [M. A. Rabie, Y. M. Haddara, and J. Carette, J. Appl. Phys. 98, 074904 (2005)]. More instructive features of the thermal oxidation of silicon have been disclosed directly from measurements of oxide thickness with time [M. A. Hopper, R. A. Clarke, and L. Young, J. Electrochem. Soc. 122, 1216 (1975) and J. Blanc, Philos. Mag. B 55, 685 (1987)]. Graphs of the natural logarithm of the growth rate versus oxide thickness, in the range between 2 and 65 nm, show that the oxide thickness influences the activation energy EA between 1.4 and 2.7 eV.

Formation of SiO2/Si structure with low interface state density by atmospheric-pressure VHF plasma oxidation

“…The activation energy of the average plasma oxidation rate was obtained to be approximately 0.22 eV. This value is about 10 times smaller than that of the thermal oxidation process, which has been reported to be 2.01 eV [15] corresponding to that of the thermal diffusion of oxygen molecules in SiO 2 . So, other mechanisms than the diffusion of oxygen molecules should be considered as the rate limiting process for plasma oxidation.…”

High-Temperature Oxidation of SiC-Based Composite: Rate Constant Calculation from ReaxFF MD Simulations, Part II

“…The fit for H 2 O was also steeper, indicating a larger E a value. The fits for the pure component and mixture systems closely overlapped each other for each species, again indicating the marked difference in oxidation capability …”

“…The fits for the pure component and mixture systems closely overlapped each other for each species, again indicating the marked difference in oxidation capability. 65 The final Arrhenius parameters are presented in Table 1. E a for O 2 and H 2 O were estimated to be 46−71 and 125−150 kJ/ mol, respectively.…”