Unraveling the mechanisms responsible for the interfacial region formation in 4H-SiC dry thermal oxidation

Abstract

Aiming to understand the processes involved in the formation of the transition region between SiO2 and SiC, known as the interfacial region, early steps of SiC oxidation were investigated using mainly nuclear reaction analyses. Oxidation kinetics reveals that an abrupt change in the oxidation mechanism is observed in C-face oxide films when their thickness is around 10 nm, while a continuous change in the oxidation mechanism is observed in Si-face oxide films with thicknesses up to about 4 nm. This last thickness corresponds to the maximum width of the interfacial region. Changes observed in the oxidation mechanism were related to oxidation reaction and interfacial atom emission that may take place during oxide film growth. Besides, the activation energies of such processes were obtained.