Local Ordering and Lateral Growth of Initial Thermal Oxide of Si(001)

Abstract
The initial stages of the thermal (600° C) oxide growth of Si (001) clean surfaces were studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Oxide growth starts from both step edges and terraces. At 120L, almost the entire surface was covered by oxides. Steps could still be identified, and the apparent roughness had a local minimum at this O2 exposure. These results indicate that the first layer is oxidized quite uniformly. Some local orderings of the initial oxides were observed on the terraces, which may enhance the oxide growth in the lateral (parallel to the surface) direction.