Nucleation, growth and retrogrowth of oxidation induced stacking faults in thin silicon-on-insulator

The nucleation, growth, and retrogrowth of stacking faults were investigated for thermally oxidized silicon-on-insulator substrates formed by the separation by implanted oxygen (SIMOX) method. It has been observed that for high oxidation temperatures (T >1150°C) oxidation induced stacking faults (OISFs) undergo a retrogrowth (shrinkage) process at noticeably lower temperatures than in bulk silicon. The retrogrowth process in thin film SIMOX substrates starts at approximately 1190°C for the 2 h thermal oxidations. In this paper, a model for the retrogrowth process is proposed based on the assumption that at high oxidation temperatures vacancies may be injected from the thermal oxide/top silicon interface. We suggest that the vacancy injection reduces the self-interstitial supersaturation and as a direct consequence, attenuates the OISF growth. We also propose that the self-interstitial supersaturation is reduced through point defect recombination inside the silicon overlayer and at the top-silicon/buried-oxide interface where a high density of steps and kink sites are found.