Thermal evolution of impurities in wet chemical silicon oxides

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Abstract
We have used infrared absorption spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to study the thermal evolution (under ultrahigh vacuum conditions) of ultrathin silicon oxide films grown in acid solutions (HCl, HNO3, and H2SO4). We find that adsorbed hydrocarbon contaminants dissociate and become chemically incorporated into the thin oxide as additional silicon oxide, carbide, hydride, and hydroxyl species. These species significantly influence the thermal evolution of the oxide films and persist up to the SiO desorption temperature (850–1000 °C) so that, once formed, these defects will be necessarily present in the final device structure.