Nitrogen distribution during oxidation of low and medium energy nitrogen-implanted silicon

In this work, we performed a systematic study of the influence of nitrogen implantation energy on the final nitrogen distribution and on the growth of thin and ultrathin oxides formed by oxidation of nitrogen-implanted silicon. Nitrogen was implanted in a wide range of energies (3-150 keV) and oxidations were performed for various temperatures (800-900 °C) and times (30 min-4 h). We observe that the amount of nitrogen remaining within the oxides decreases as the implantation energy decreases and nitrogen is located closer to the silicon surface, due to more effective out-diffusion. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.