Nandita DasGupta

It is shown that the native oxide of GaAs can be thermally grown easily at a temperature of 250°C using a high-pressure oxidation technique. The resulting oxide films are uniform, chemically stable and have a breakdown strength of 68 x 106 V/cm and a bandgap energy greater than 6.5 eV. The chemical composition of the oxide films is studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and it is found to contain oxides of both gallium and arsenic. © 1987, The Institution of Electrical Engineers. All rights reserved.

It is shown here that ultrathin oxides can be grown with excellent control by a low temperature, high pressure oxidation process. The I-V characteristics of tunneling metal-insulator-semiconductor diodes fabricated using this process demonstrate that the interface state density can be reduced by an order of magnitude compared with low temperature, atmospheric pressure oxidation. © 1988.

A low-temperature (∼250°C) high-pressure oxidation technique is used for the thermal oxidation of gallium arsenide in an ambient of oxygen and water vapor. It is shown that a uniform and chemically stable oxide with high band-gap energy can be grown on GaAs by this process. The role of water vapor and oxygen is studied in detail to obtain information on the oxidation mechanism. The electrical characteristics and the composition of this oxide are presented to demonstrate its suitability for surface passivation and metal-oxide-semiconductor devices.