Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2011
During the oxidation of silicon, interstitials are generated at the oxidizing surface and diffuse into the silicon. Boron diffusion was used to map the local interstitial super-saturation, the ratio of interstitial concentration to the equilibrium concentration of interstitials I/I*, versus depth above buried Si0.795Ge0.2C0.005 layers during oxidation. The average interstitial supersaturation at the silicon surface, extrapolated from the depth profiles, is measured as, ∼24 and ∼11.5 for 750°C and 850°C respectively. Using the measured interstitial concentration at the surface, the silicon interstitial injection into the silicon is calculated for oxidation at 750°C and 850°C. Finally, it is found that the surface boundary condition remains fixed over an interstitial injection rate ranging over 4 orders of magnitude.