Ion Beam Studies of Silicon Oxidation and Oxynitridation

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss the use of ion beam methods to examine silicon oxidation and oxynitridation. Ion beam analysis, although usually performed ex-situ following growth, offers precise information about the composition and growth mechanism of films. We limit our work to an examination of methods involving ion beam energies E ≥ 50 keV. We discuss Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS), elastic recoil detection (ERD), medium energy ion scattering (MEIS), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA), and nuclear resonance profiling (NRP). SIMS and other lower energy methods are not reviewed; instead the reader is referred to reviews elsewhere [1,2]. For many isotopes SIMS has superior detection limits than RBS and NRA. It provides very high sensitivity (in some cases on the order of 0.001 atomic %) and can be performed rapidly [3,4]. For many of the applications discussed below, however, conventional SIMS techniques do not offer the depth resolution needed due to matrix effects and ion beam mixing.