A comparative study of InP and Si surfaces passivated by SiO 2 has been carried out in order to single out the effects associated with the structural peculiarities of the insulator. SiO 2 has been deposited on InP and Si simultaneously at low temperature. Moreover, different regimes for deposition of the insulator have been used. Values obtained for the time instability (TIS) of interface characteristics of Si-SiO 2 and InP-SiO 2 were in close agreement. Experimentally, the presence of distorted and ruptured Si-O bonds was found in the bulk of SiO 2 deposited by low-temperature techniques on both InP and Si, even though the refractive index (n) and permittivity (ε) of SiO 2 were virtually coincident with those for thermal SiO 2 . Small departures of SiO 2 from stoichiometry, which manifested themselves as small deviations (< 0.016) of n from the value for thermal SiO 2 , were accompanied by the appearance of a frequency dependence of ε as well as by an increase of several fold in TIS for both structures.