High-quality SiO2 film formation by highly concentrated ozone gas at below 600 °C

Abstract

Highly concentrated (>93 vol %) ozone (O3) gas was used to oxidize silicon for obtaining high-quality SiO2 film at low temperature. Compared to O2 oxidation, more than 500 °C lower temperature oxidation (i.e., from 830 to 330 °C) has been enabled for achieving the same SiO2 growth rate. A 6 nm SiO2 film, for example, could be grown at 600 °C within 3 min at 900 Pa O3 atmosphere. The temperature dependence of the oxidation rate is relatively low, giving an activation energy for the parabolic rate constant of 0.32 eV. Furthermore, a 400 °C grown SiO2 film was found to have satisfactory electrical properties with a small interface trap density (5×1010 cm−2/eV) and large breakdown field (14 MV/cm).