Oxidation kinetics of SiC in microwave oxygen plasma

Abstract A kinetic insight into microwave plasma oxidation on 4H-SiC is of great importance to improve the quality of SiO2 dielectric and SiO2/SiC interface in SiC MOSFETs. In this work, quantitative study on SiC plasma oxidation has been performed for a wide range of oxidation conditions by using Massoud’s empirical relation. In this relation, an additional exponential term related to the diffusion coefficient, the oxidation coefficient and the emission ratio of Si and C is introduced to describe the deviation of oxidation behavior relative to the Deal-Grove model. In plasma oxidation, the exponential term is dominant, especially in the growth-rate enhancement stage. Moreover, the contribution of the exponent increases with increasing temperature. Finally, a plausible kinetic model is proposed by considering exchange in the surface region, diffusion in oxide and reaction at the SiO2/SiC interface.