Overview

The first international symposium on the subject "The Physics and Chemistry of Si02 and the Si-Si02 Interface," organized in association with the Electrochemical Society, Inc., was held in Atlanta, Georgia on May 15- 20, 1988. This symposium contained sixty papers and was so successful that the sponsoring divisions decided to schedule it on a regular basis every four years. Thus, the second symposium on "The Physics and Chemistry of Si02 and the Si02 Interface was held May 18-21, 1992 in St. Louis, Missouri, again sponsored by the Electronics and Dielectrics Science and Technology Divisions of The Electrochemical Society. This volume contains manuscripts of most of the fifty nine papers presented at the 1992 symposium, and is divided into eight chapters - approximating the organization of the symposium. Each chapter is preceded with an introduction by the session organizers. It is appropriate to provide a general assessment of the current status and understanding of the physics and chemistry of Si02 and the Si02 interface before proceeding with a brief overview of the individual chapters. Semiconductor devices have continued to scale down in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. This has resulted in thinner gate and field oxides as well as much closer spacing of individual device features. As a result, surface condition, native oxide composition, and cleaning and impurity effects now provide a much more significant contribution to the properties of oxides and their interfaces.