HIGH-RESOLUTION ION-SCATTERING STUDY OF SILICON OXYNITRIDATION

High resolution medium energy ion scattering was used to characterize the nitrogen distribution in ultrathin silicon oxynitrides with sub-nm -accuracy. We show that nitrogen does not incorporate into the subsurf ace region of the substrate; after oxidation of Si(100) in NO. Core-le vel photoemission experiments show two bonding configurations of nitro gen near the interface, Oxynitridation in N2O results in a lower conce ntration and a broader distribution of nitrogen than in the NO case. ( C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.