Two‐Step Oxidation Experiments to Determine Structural and Thermal History Effects in Thermally‐Grown SiO2 Films on Si

A two‐step oxidation strategy and a two‐layer linear‐parabolic formalism are used to analyze the effect of different thermal histories on oxidation rates of thermally grown silicon dioxide films. It is found that the oxidation rates in a second oxidation step vary dramatically with the refractive index of the initial film. If the initial film was initially processed at a temperature higher than that of the second oxidation, the oxidation rate in the second step is found to be significantly enhanced. The variations in second step oxidation rate are found to be in transport processes, and not in interface processes.