Rapid thermal oxidation of silicon monoxide

Abstract
Silicon monoxide and silicon dioxide form insulating films that are commonly used in microelectronic devices. In the technology of devices containing silicon, the insulating silicon dioxide films are formed on the silicon wafers using conventional methods of thermal oxidation. This technique, which requires long periods of annealing (30–60 min) and high temperature (≂1000 °C), is known to induce different types of physical degradation in the device. In this letter, we demonstrate the possibility of converting silicon monoxide deposited at room temperature to silicon dioxide by rapid thermal annealing. Although the annealing temperature is high (700–1100 °C) the time is very short (within seconds), so that this process may still be compatible with the requirements of low-temperature processing.

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