On oxidation kinetics and electrical quality of gate oxide grown in H₂O or D₂O ambient

In recent literature, a controversy has arisen over the question whether deuterium improves the stability of the MOS gate dielectric. This work presents a wide range of growth rate data of H2O and D2O gate oxides in an ultra-diluted ambient. A considerable and constant difference in oxidation rate is found between the two species. Although literature suggests a correlation between growth rate and dielectric quality, the degradation measurements on MOS capacitors with 8.5 nm gate oxides grown at 950 °C at low partial pressure show only a very weak difference between the isotopes. It appears that the difference in oxidation rate does not affect the gate oxide quality, and high quality grown gate oxides do not appear to benefit from the deuterium isotope effect.