Modeling of Stress-Retarded Thermal Oxidation of Nonplanar Silicon Structures for Realization of Nanoscale Devices

Abstract

Accurate modeling of stress-retarded orientationdependent 2-D oxidation is carried out by matching the experimental and simulated oxide thicknesses of silicon FIN nanostructures over a wide range of temperatures and times in dry oxygen. Experimentally observed initial oxidation rate enhancement, orientation-dependent stress retardation, and self-limiting phenomena are modeled, and a new universal stress retardation parameter set is obtained for the first time. The new parameter set has been validated against oxidation experiments presented here and those reported in the literature. Furthermore, the new model is used to explore silicon nanowire shape engineering.

Modelling and engineering of stress based controlled oxidation effects for silicon nanostructure patterning

“…A large set of nanobeam structures matching all the experimental feature details provided by SEM characterization have been simulated [37]. As pointed out in a recent study [20], most process simulators fail to describe the nanostructure shape resulting from the oxidation process. In order to improve the predictivity of the oxide growth rate in the (110) and (111) orientations, the linear rate has been re-calibrated as discussed in section 4.1.…”

“…Great concern about the stress levels predicted at the atomistic scale of the Si/SiO 2 interface has been reported [18]. On the other hand, macroscopic simulations [19] fail to explain these retarded or self-limited effects and cannot be used to predict the resulting shape of the oxidized nanostructures [20]. This is a great concern for silicon based nanotechnology which should be addressed.…”

Initial stage oxidation on nano-trenched Si(1 0 0) surface

“…Concerning the fabrication and application of these devices, oxidation of nano-trenched Si is a significant factor. As the substrate approaches the sub microscale, the shape and size effect turn out to be critical on the stress distribution and the following oxidation process [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. However, for the nanoscale electronic element with an ultra-thin oxide film, these features emerging at the early oxidation stage could not be explained well by the classical kinetic model [20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

The Modeling of Progress of Production Defects in Surface Layers of Functional Optical Components of Moems

“…It should be noted that we have considered only truly significant technological processes. To control the occurrence of such defects, there is a fairly wide variety of nondestructive testing methods [29,30]. To control the surfaces of the functional components of micrototoelectronic systems, we proposed a tested method [31].…”