Application of irradiation-then-nitridation to improve the radiation hardness in MOS gate dielectrics

In this paper, the irradiation-then-nitridation (ITN) method was suggested to prepare oxynitrides. After 60Co 1 Mrad irradiation, oxides were nitrided in N2O to become oxynitrides. They are more radiation hard than those nitrided in N2O directly. The difference can be explained by assuming that ITN process introduces more nitrogen SiO2Si interfaces and hence improves radiation hardness.