Anodic Oxide Formation and Ionic Transport

Chemical oxides are reported to show non-uniformities of the thickness or the etch rate on a length scale of 30-100 nm, independent of crystal orientation or doping of the substrate. This is in contrast to oxides formed in the gas phase, which are very uniform [Aol], 

If a silicon electrode is anodically oxidized in an acidic electrolyte free of HF, the oxide thickness increases monotonically with anodization time. This is also true for alkaline electrolytes if the oxide formation rate exceeds the slow chemical dissolution of the anodic Si02. This monotonic behavior, however, is not necessarily associated with monotonic current-time or potential-time curves. 

Typical anodization curves of silicon electrodes in aqueous electrolytes are shown in Fig. 5.1 [Pa9]. The oxidation can be performed under potential control or under current control. For the potentiostatic case the current density in the first few seconds of anodization is only limited by the electrolyte conductivity [Ba2]. In this respect the oxide formation in this time interval is not truly under potentiostatic control, which may cause irreproducible results [Ba7]. In aqueous electrolytes of low resistivity the potentiostatic characteristic shows a sharp current peak when the potential is switched to a positive value at t=0. After this first current peak a second broader one is observed for potentials of 16 V and higher, as shown in Fig. 5.1a. The first sharp peak due to anodic oxidation is also observed in low concentrated HF, as shown in Fig. 4.14. In order to avoid the initial current peak, the oxidation can be performed under potentiodynamic conditions (V/f =const), as shown in Fig. 5.1b. In this case the current increases slowly near t=0, but shows a pronounced first maximum at a constant bias of about 19 V, independently of scan rate. The charge consumed between t=0 and this first maximum is in the order of 0.2 mAs cnT2. After this first maximum several other maxima at different bias are observed. 

For galvanostatic anodization a first potential maximum is again observed at about 19 V, and the thickness of the anodic oxide at this maxima has been determined to be about 11 nm, as shown in Fig. 5.4. Note that these values correspond to an electric field strength of about 17 MV cm4. The first maximum may be followed by several more, as shown in Fig. 5.1c and d. Note that these pronounced maxima become smeared out or even disappear for an increase in anodization current density (Fig. 5.Id), a reduction in temperature (Fig. 5.1c), or an increase in electrolyte resistivity. The latter value is usually too large for organic electrolytes to observe any current maxima. A dependence of these maxima on crystal orientation [Le4] or doping kind and density [Pa9] is not observed. The rich structure of the anodization curves is interpreted as transition of the oxide morphology and is discussed in detail in the next section. 

The growth rates of anodic oxides depend on electrolyte composition and anodization conditions. The oxide thickness is reported to increase linearly with the applied bias at a rate of 0.5-0.6 nm V-1 for current densities in excess of 1 mA cnT2 and ethylene glycol-based electrolytes of a low water content [Da2, Ja2, Crl, Mel2] (for D in nm and V in V)  

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