Nitrogen distribution during oxidation of low and medium energy nitrogen-implanted silicon

Abstract

In this work, we performed a systematic study of the influence of nitrogen implantation energy on the final nitrogen distribution and on the growth of thin and ultrathin oxides formed by oxidation of nitrogen-implanted silicon. Nitrogen was implanted in a wide range of energies (3–150 keV) and oxidations were performed for various temperatures (800–900 °C) and times (30 min–4 h). We observe that the amount of nitrogen remaining within the oxides decreases as the implantation energy decreases and nitrogen is located closer to the silicon surface, due to more effective out-diffusion.