Coupled mechanical-oxidation modeling during silicon thermal oxidation process

This work provided an analytical model to solve the coupled mechanical-oxidation problem during the silicon thermal oxidation process. The silicon thermal oxidation behavior under two different mechanical load conditions, i.e., constant strain and uniaxial stress, were considered. The variations of oxide stress and scale thickness along with oxidation time were predicted. During modeling, all the effects of stress accumulation due to growth strain, stress relaxation due to viscous flow and the external load on the scale growth rate were taken into consideration. Results showed that the existence of external loads had an obvious influence on the oxide stress and scale thickness. Generally, tensile stress or strain accelerated the oxidant diffusion process. However, the reaction rate at the Si/SiO2 interface was retarded under uniaxial stress, which was not found in the case of constant strain load.