Characterization of ultrathin silicon oxide films with mirror-enhanced polarized reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

Ultrathin silicon oxide films thermally grown on Si (100) are characterized with mirror-enhanced polarized reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (MEPR-FTIR). MEPR-FTIR is proposed to effectively probe properties of ultrathin films. Using a mirror and a polarizer, MEPR-FTIR overcomes the difficulty of weak IR intensities normally encountered in ultrathin gate dielectrics such as SiO2; the intensity of the silicon oxide longitudinal optical (LO) mode is found to increase by a factor of about 20. Therefore, FTIR spectrometers with sensitivity down to 0.01% may allow even submonolayer probing of silicon oxide on Si substrates. The relationship between film thickness and IR intensity of the LO mode at 1252 cm−1 is presented for silicon oxide films as thin as a few Å thick. Independent measurements with ellipsometry, cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy as well as theoretical predictions using the general Fresnel function are utilized. Although nonlinear overall, the theoretically predicted relationship between the MEPR-FTIR intensity and film thickness is almost linear within the range 0–50 Å. Experimental data are shown to agree very well with the theoretical calculations for two different kinds of oxides: thermal oxides grown at 1050 °C and native oxides. Such results suggest that the MEPR-FTIR can be useful as an ex situ or in situ technique for thickness measurements and, in fact, for other properties of ultrathin gate dielectrics.