Anomalous oxygen diffusivity and the early stages of silicon oxidation

The anomalously high rates observed in the early stages of silicon oxidation in dry O2 at relatively low temperature (T = 600–800°C) are explained by assuming that these kinetics are controlled by the formation of a diffuse interface from the abrupt native interface. If this process is limited by O2 diffusion in silicon, the available data allow the diffusivity to be determined. In particular, the activation energy for O2 diffusion is estimated to be 1.7–1.8 eV.