Microscopic Mechanism of Silicon Thermal Oxdation Process

Abstract

Our recent achievement for the scheme on microscopic mechanism of silicon thermal oxidation processes is shown. In our scheme, the silicon thermal oxidation processes consists of three processes; (a) oxygen diffusion through the oxide, (b) oxygen reaction at the interface, and (c) deformation of the interfacial oxide. The third process, deformation, is not included in the classical Deal-Grove scheme, but our results suggest that the so-called reaction limited regime of the Deal-Grove theory is governed by this deformation. Both theoretical and experimental studies are described in support of the new scheme.

Stress Dependence of Oxidation Reaction at SiO2/Si Interfaces during Silicon Thermal Oxidation

“…Actually, the effective barrier height including the energy penalty reasonably agrees with the activation energy extracted from the reaction constant in the Deal-Grove model. 15,16,20,21) In the present study, the reaction mechanism in the stress-induced interfaces is clarified in terms of the activation energy obtained from incorporation energy and energy barrier height. Furthermore, the calculated activation volume estimated from the stress dependence of barrier height is compared with those obtained from numerical simulations.…”