Effect on high-temperature oxidation on the buried oxide integrity in low-dose SIMOX wafers

Synthesis of the perfect buried oxide (BOX) layer beneath the surface of Si wafers by means of low-dose oxygen implantation (D<10 ¹⁸ cm^-2 and subsequent high-temperature annealing (HTA) can be achieved only within an optimum dose range (ODR). Recently, a high-temperature thermal oxidation (ITOX process), that follows the standard HTA, was found to improve the integrity of BOX grown within the ODR. In particular, it was demonstrated that the density of Si pipes can be reduced during ITOX by a factor of 35. In this work, the authors study the effect ofITOX on the integrity of BOX grown for doses D<3.5×10¹⁷ cm^-2