Influence of nitrogen profile on electrical characteristics of furnace- or rapid thermally nitrided silicon dioxide films

Abstract

Electrical characterization of rapid thermal annealed radio frequency sputtered silicon oxide films Thin silicon dioxide films nitrided in N 2 O by rapid thermal processing ͑RTP͒ or in a classical furnace were investigated by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, and electrical measurements on metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors. Differences between the two nitridation processes were observed and explained. In lightly nitrided films, nitrogen occupies two configurations. Nitrogen is bound to three silicon atoms with at least one in the substrate or all three in the oxide. In RTP-nitrided films, both of these species are confined to within 1.5 nm of the Si/SiO 2 interface. In furnace-nitrided films, the first species is also located close to the interface whereas the second one fills most of the regrown oxide thickness. In furnace-grown films, which are more heavily nitrided, a third structure due to Si 2 vN-O is observed throughout the layer. The electrical characteristics are well correlated with the amount of nitrogen at the interface that is bound to Si atoms in the substrate.

Electrical and structural properties of ultrathin SiON films on Si prepared by plasma nitridation

“…This fact is quite common for oxynitrides. 6,10 The important feature is that the nitrogen concentration does not peak near the Si/ SiON interface as in previous examples in the literature 6,10 but rather is distributed along the entire depth of the oxynitride. Nitrogen pileup near that interface causes a large number of interface states.…”

“…I. 6,9,10 The determination of the value of D it for sample 07 was impossible due to large leakage currents.…”

Next-nearest neighbour contributions to P 2p3/2 X-ray photoelectron binding energy shifts of mixed transition-metal phosphides M1−xM′xP with the MnP-type structure

“…In nitrided silicon dioxide and silicon oxynitride thin films, the N 1s BEs shift by $0.1 eV upon substitution of the next-nearest neighbours (O for Si) [14,15]. The P 2p BEs of transitionmetal substituted phosphate (P 2 O 5 ) glasses decrease when the next-nearest neighbour is replaced by a metal (i.e., P-O-P to P-O-M) [16,17].…”

XPS and SIMS depth profiling of oxynitrides

“…Based on its binding energy, the nature of N2 can be assigned tentatively to one nitrogen bonded to two silicon atoms and one oxygen, as reported in the literature. 12 This second peak has had different assignments in the literature, 4,12,13 involving oxygen or hydrogen atoms or both, and the issue is still quite controversial.…”