Oxide growth on silicon (100) in the plasma phase of dry oxygen using an electron cyclotron resonance source

Abstract

Silicon dioxide films were grown using an oxygen plasma generated by an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) source at several low temperatures. The plasma oxidation rate was investigated by varying the growth parameters. The oxide thickness parabolically increases with microwave power but decreases with increasing pressure or flow rate. A complementary model of the Deal–Grove oxidation theory is suggested for the plasma oxidation, and kinetic parameters are compared with the other plasma and thermal oxidation cases. The diffusion rate constant in O2 plasma oxidation at room temperature is enhanced up to the level of the diffusion rate in thermal oxidation and the reaction rate constant is much larger than the thermal oxidation case. This may imply that, due to oxygen atoms dissociated by the ECR plasma, plasma oxidation is related to the atomic diffusion through oxide layer and the atomic chemical reaction at the Si–SiO2 interface. The high quality of the ultrathin oxide film was characterized with a breakdown field of 14.8 MeV/cm and an interfacial state density of 1.2×1010 eV−1 cm−2.