WHAT CAN ELECTRON-PARAMAGNETIC-RESONANCE TELL US ABOUT THE SI SIO2 SYSTEM/

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements of Si/SiO2 systems began over 30 years ago. Most EPR studies of Si/SiO2 systems have deal t with two families of defects: P-b centers and E' centers. Several va riants from each group have been observed in a wide range of Si/SiO2 s amples. Some of the most basic aspects of this extensive, body of work remain controversial. EPR is an extraordinary powerful analytical too l quite widely utilized in chemistry, biomedical research, and solid s tate physics. Although uniquely well suited for metal-oxide-silicon (M OS) device studies, its capabilities are not widely understood in the MOS research and development community. The impact of EPR has been Lim ited in the MOS community by a failure of EPR spectroscopists to effec tively communicate with other engineers and scientists in the MOS comm unity. In this cuticle we hope to, first of all, ameliorate the commun ications problem by providing a brief but quantitative introduction to those aspects of EPR which are most relevant to MOS systems. We revie w, critically, those aspects of the MOS/EPR literature which are most relevant to MOS technology and show how this information can be used t o develop physically based reliability models. Finally, we briefly rev iew EPR work dealing with impurity defects in oxide thin films. (C) 19 98 American Vacuum Society.