Nitrogen implantations for rapid thermal oxinitride layers

Oxidation of nitrogen implanted substrates results in so called silicon-oxi nitride layers (SixOyN2 layers) which are dependent on implantation dose an d energy always thinner than pure silicon-oxides (SiO2) produced under the same oxidation conditions. Elastic recoil detection profiles indicate that the implanted nitrogen diffuses out of the substrate into the silicon-oxide layer what improves the electrical quality of these insulators. The SixOyN z layers show lower Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling currents as well as lower in terface state densities (D-it) than the corresponding SiO2 layers or N2O-si licon-oxinitride insulators. NH3-SixOyNz layers show the lowest D-it values because of H-2-annealing effects but contain fixed charges. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.