Thermal oxidation of 6H-SiC studied by oxygen isotopic tracing and narrow nuclear resonance profiling

We show that on SiC () (the fast-oxidizing carbon face), at 1100 °C and 100 mbar, the oxide exhibits an initial fast growth regime, followed by a constant growth rate confirming previous results that oxide growth is not limited by diffusion of the oxidizing species or reaction products through the oxide. At 1100 °C, in this linear regime, the growth rate also exhibits a linear dependence with oxygen pressure. The silicon face shows sub-linear pressure dependence. A simple oxidation model is ruled out since, on both SiC faces, sequential 16O2/18O2/16O2 oxidations show that oxygen fixed in the oxide, near the SiC/SiO2 interface moves during subsequent growth

A round robin characterisation of the thickness and composition of thin to ultra-thin AlNO films

International audienceA round robin characterisation of the thickness and composition of thin to ultra-thin AINO films was organised. Thirteen participant groups used various ion beam analysis (IBA) techniques to determine quantitatively the thickness, areal density and concentration of aluminium, nitrogen and oxygen in films with thicknesses ranging nominally from 1 to 100 nm. Most of the ratios reported are not statistically different from the reference values, and only very seldom are large deviations observed. It was not possible to identify a given technique or a group of techniques as being more reliable for analysing the ultra-thin samples. Unexpected deviations in some results reflect a need for further measurements of fundamental quantities, namely cross-sections and stopping powers in energy ranges useful for IBA. Furthermore, precise measurements of beam fluence and detector solid angle would lead to improvements in the accuracy of some of the quantities reported, particularly areal densities. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved