Thin germanium dioxide film with a high quality interface formed in a direct neutral beam oxidation process

Germanium dioxide (GeO₂) thin film with a high-quality interface was directly formed by using a damage-free and low-temperature neutral beam oxidation (NBO) process. GeO₂ film with little suboxide could be formed even at a low substrate temperature of 300°C because of the extremely low activation energy (E_a) oxidation resulting from bombardment with energetic oxygen neutral-beams of 5 eV. A high-quality GeO₂/Ge interface with an low interface state density (D_it) of less than 1 × 10¹¹ cm^-2eV^-1 was created by combining the NBO process with a hydrogen (H) radical native oxide removal treatment.