Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The surface microroughness of Si(100) wafers has been studied by FT-IR-ATR. The final wafer clean in an 0.1% HF + 1% H2O2 aqueous solution significantly improves the hydrogenterminated surface morphology as demonstrated by a sharp SiH2 stretching vibration peak accompanied with the weak SiH and SiH3 peaks. The ultra-thin gate oxide grown on such surface exhibits nearly ideal tunneling current transport. The cleaning in 4.5% HF reduces the SiH2 peak height and enhances SiH3, making the surface rough. Nevertheless, the tunneling characteristics are hardly influenced with such spectral change.