Quantitative measurement of the surface silicon interstitial boundary condition and silicon interstitial injection into silicon during oxidation - art. no. 085316

During the oxidation of silicon, interstitials are generated at the oxidizi ng surface and diffuse into the silicon. Boron diffusion was used to map th e local interstitial supersaturation, the ratio of interstitial concentrati on to the equilibrium concentration of interstitials versus the distance ab ove buried Si0.795Ge0.2C0.005 layers during oxidation. The average intersti tial supersaturation at the silicon surface, extrapolated from the depth pr ofiles was similar to 25 and similar to 13 for 750 degreesC and 850 degrees C, respectively. Using the measured interstitial concentration at the surfa ce, the silicon interstitial injection into the silicon is calculated for o xidation at 750 degreesC and 850 degreesC. Finally, it is found that the su rface boundary condition remains relatively fixed for an interstitial injec tion rate ranging over four orders of magnitude.