Effects of the surface deposition of nitrogen on the thermal oxidation of silicon in O2

Nitrogen was deposited on the surface layers of Si(100) by ion implantation at a very low energy (approximately 20 eV), at fluences between 1 and 10 x 10(14) cm(-2). The samples were thermally oxidized in dry O-2 at 1050 degrees C, and the areal densities and profiles of N and O were determined by nuclear reaction analysis and narrow nuclear resonance profiling, evidencing that: (i) the retained amounts of N just after ion beam deposition stayed in the range between 0.3 and 7 x 10(14) cm(-2); (ii) the oxide growth is influenced strongly by the presence of nitrogen, the thickness of the oxide films (which remained between 4 and 30 nm) decreased with the increase of the areal density of nitrogen; (iii)N is partially removed from the system as oxidation proceeds. These observations are discussed in terms of current models for the thermal growth of silicon oxide in the presence of N. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.