ANNEALING KINETICS AND REVERSIBILITY OF STRESS-INDUCED LEAKAGE CURRENT IN THIN OXIDES

The annealing kinetics of stress-induced leakage current in ultrathin SiO2 has been quantitatively investigated after high temperature bakes . We have found that the defects at the origin of the stress induced-l eakage current can be fully annihilated and that it is possible to gen erate and anneal them several times without deterioration of the oxide quality. Moreover, the activation energy and diffusion coefficient de duced from the recovery time constant of the annealing kinetics are fo und nearly independent of the oxide thickness. (C) 1998 American Insti tute of Physics.