Characteristic electronic defects at the Si-SiO2 interface

On unannealed, thermally oxidized silicon, electron spin resonance reveals an oriented interface defect which is termed the Pb center and identified as the trivalent silicon defect. Deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) reveals two broad characteristic peaks in the interface-state distribution: one ∼0.3 eV above the silicon valence-band maximum and a second ∼0.25 eV below the conduction band. Isochronal anneals of oxidized silicon, coated with aluminum, show that the spin density and the densities of the two DLTS peaks have the same annealing kinetics. On large-area, Al-gated capacitors the spin density can be modulated with an applied voltage; sweeping the silicon band gap at the interface through the Fermi level reveals that the spin density is approximately constant over the central region of the band gap but decreases near the band edges. The variation of the spin density with gate voltage identifies an amphoteric center with both electronic transitions in the band gap. Both the annealing behavior and the voltage dependence of the Pb center support the conclusion that these transitions correspond to the two characteristic peaks in the interface-state distribution. The ∼0.6 eV separation of the peaks is the effective correlation energy of the dangling orbital on a trivalent silicon defect at the Si-SiO2 interface. The similarity between the disordered interface and amorphous silicon is discussed.