The Use of Fresnel Contrast to Study the Initial Stages of the In-Situ Oxidation of Silicon

The interface between silicon and its oxide has been studied extensively at different stages of growth using a variety of powerful analytical techniques. It has become clear that in order to understand the kinetics of thin oxide growth and the structure of the Si/SiO sub 2 interface, compositional information is required at atomic resolution to complement the interesting structural results already provided by high resolution electron microscopy. Unfortunately data is difficult to obtain at adequate resolution with techniques requiring a focussed probe because of the problems of beam broadening and damage to the oxide.