Remote plasma-assisted oxidation of SiC: a low temperature process for SiC-SiO2 interface formation that eliminates interfacial Si oxycarbide transition regions

Remote plasma-assisted oxidation of SiC is a low temperature process, 300 deg. C, for the formation of device quality interfaces on SiC. This paper discusses two aspects of the process: (i) the motivation for eliminating high temperature oxidation processes that can generate silicon oxycarbide, Si-O-C, interfacial regions which can be a source of interfacial defects and (ii) the kinetics of the remote plasma-assisted oxidation process that effectively eliminates interfacial Si oxycarbide transition regions. The differences between interfacial relaxation at Si-SiO2 and SiC-SiO2 are based on the relative stabilities of the suboxides of Si and SiC, SiOx and (Si,C)Ox, respectively