BURIED OXIDES - WHERE WE HAVE BEEN AND WHERE WE ARE GOING

Buried oxides in semiconductors (so-called BOX) demonstrate a large fl exibility of applications, not only in the domain of pure electronic c ircuits, but also in new areas such as integrated optoelectronics, mic romachining and sensors. This is mainly due to the variety of dielectr ic properties that can play electrical as well as mechanical roles and can act as a buffer layer. Compound structures containing a buried in sulator or buried oxide are most of the time identified as silicon-on- insulator (SOI), or more generally semiconductor-on-insulator instead of BOX. This paper briefly covers the roots of the concepts, and class ifies and depicts the techniques used to investigate SOI as well as th eir main applications over the past 60 years.