The early oxynitridation stages of hydrogen-terminated (100) silicon after exposure to N2 : N2O. IV: Oxide structure and growth kinetics in the monolayer regime

The structure and growth kinetics of the oxide resulting from exposure of hydrogen-terminated single-crystalline (100) silicon to diluted N2 : N2O atmospheres at moderate temperatures (in the interval 750–850 °C) have been studied byX-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). Under these conditions, the data suggest that the substoichiometric interface region is extremely narrow, and they point to O2 (resulting from N2O decomposition) as the major oxidizing species after monolayer completion.