AVS 47th International Symposium
    Dielectrics Thursday Sessions
       Session DI+EL+MS-ThM

Paper DI+EL+MS-ThM8
Photoemission Investigation of Nitrogen Incorporation at the Si/SiO@sub 2@ Interface

Thursday, October 5, 2000, 10:40 am, Room 312

Session: Ultrathin Dielectrics and Interfaces
Presenter: J.W. Keister, North Carolina State University
Authors: J.E. Rowe, Army Research Office
J.W. Keister, North Carolina State University
Correspondent: Click to Email
Monolayer incorporation of nitrogen at the Si/SiO@sub 2@ interface enhances the reliability and electrical characteristics of this nearly perfect interface for ultrathin SiO2 layers.@footnote 1@ In this paper we demonstrate that the Si(100)/SiO@sub 2@ interface is chemically sensitive to the nitrogen concentration. The nitrogen (1s) Soft X-ray Photoemission Spectroscopy (SXPS) peak was measured for varying degrees of N incorporation using the Advanced Light Source synchrotron at LBL National Lab. The broad width of the N(1s) SXPS peak lineshape is consistent with a large degree of final-state, Gaussian phonon broadening, and is comparable to O(1s) line. However, unlike the O(1s) line which is not especially chemically sensitive, the N(1s) line shows a clearly measureable, interface peak shift@footnote 2@ with increasing N incorporation. The average interface peak binding energy is ~0.75 eV greater than that recently reported for thick "bulk" films of Si3N4 with Al-K" XPS. To a lesser degree, the peak shape is seen to change as well. In particular, the peak width minimizes near to the value ~1.0 ML N incorporation, which is also the level at which devices interfaces perform best electrically. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ G. Lucovsky, A. Banerjee, B. Hinds, B. Claflin, K. Koh, H. Yang. J. Vac. Sci Technol. B 15(4) 1074-1079 (1997). @footnote 2@ J. W. Keister, J. E. Rowe, J. J. Kolodziej, H. Niimi, H.-S. Tao, T. E. Madey, G. Lucovsky. J. Vac. Sci Technol. A 17(4) 1250-1257 (1999).