Oxygen partial pressure influence on internal oxidation of SIMOX wafers

Internal oxidation (ITOX) of the buried oxide (BOX) of low dose SIMOX wafers has attracted a lot of attention in the last few years for its beneficial effect on the electrical and structural properties of the BOX. Models have been proposed to explain the ITOX process in terms of atomic oxygen diffusing through the silicon device layer to the BOX where it reacts with the bottom silicon interface to produce new silicon dioxide. Using the models with fitted parameters has shown good agreement with experimental data. However, the details regarding the dissociation of oxygen molecules before entering the device layer as well as the reaction of atomic oxygen with the back device layer surface were left unattended. The results presented suggest that these two processes could have a significant impact on the oxidation results and thus need to be studied to arrive at a valid model for the ITOX process