I need to get an idea of how thick the native oxide is on a silicon wafer (100) that is kept at room temperature. The wafer has not been treated or cleaned in anyway.
If you would etch a silicon wafer in HF and leave it to the air the thickness will be in the order of ~20A.
Depends on manufacturer and type of oxidizers.. some manufacturers use high temp oxidation, others use HCl.. some use a combination of both....
Your question reminded me of the famous Deal–Grove model..
If you would etch a silicon wafer in HF and leave it to the air the thickness will be in the order of ~20A.
Dear Jolie,
I would agree with Peter, our experience has been that after HF dip and at room temperature in air, the oxide growth saturates at about 10-20 Ångstroms. There is in fact a good article (quite old and I do not remember the reference) dealing precisely with this question. Otherwise one should be able to check 20 Å estimate by doing optical measurement (either optical reflection/transmission or ellipsometry).
I hope this will help as well.
With best regards
Petr
I'd agree with 1-2nm - here's another relevant thread
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_thickness_of_silicon_oxide_on_Si_capping_layer
and a paper link:
http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.347181
Hope it helps!
Upto 2-3 nm depending upon the time, temperature and humidity of the area
The thickness of native oxide reaches an upper limit of ~4nm under normal atmospheric conditions.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27758-0_1173-2
Indeed it is of nanoscale dimensions typically, as others have suggested. Further mechanistic details regarding the self-limiting oxidation process, which results in a particular temperature and geometry governed oxide layer thickness are presented in a study attached here.
Article Two-dimensional modeling of the self-limiting oxidation in s...
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