SIMULATION OF THE EARLY STAGES OF THIN SIO2 FILM GROWTH

To gain a better understanding of the silicon oxidation process, we pe rform numerical simulation of thermal SiO2 thin-film growth. It is sho wn that the oxidation rate in the early stages of growth is governed b y two processes: the rapid initial formation of the oxidation front an d its subsequent diffusion. The resulting oxidation rate provides a ra ther good description of the experimental data with the minimum number of variable parameters, suggesting that the effect of external parame ters (such as temperature and pressure) can be explained in terms of s caling concepts. The results of the simulation are also in agreement w ith the fitting of experimental data to a power law x(ox)=s+at(b) (whe re x(ox) is the measured SiO2 film thickness and t the oxidation time) predicted by a simple model for thin SiO2 film growth.