Cluster size dependence of SiO2 thin film formation by O2 gas cluster ion beams

Cluster size effects of SiO2 thin film formation with size-selected O2 gas cluster ion beams (GCIBs) irradiation on Si surface were studied. The cluster size varied between 500 and 20,000 molecules/cluster. With acceleration voltage of 5 kV, the SiO2 thickness was close to the native oxide thickness by irradiation of (O2)20,000 (0.25 eV/molecule), or (O2)10,000 (0.5 eV/molecule). However, it increased suddenly above 1 eV/molecule (5000 molecules/cluster), and increased monotonically up to 10 eV/molecule (500 molecules/cluster). The SiO2 thickness with 1 and 10 eV/molecule O2-GCIB were 2.1 and 5.0 nm, respectively. When the acceleration voltage was 30 kV, the SiO2 thickness has a peak around 10 eV/molecule (3000 molecules/cluster), and it decreased gradually with increasing the energy/molecule. At high energy/molecule, physical sputtering effect became more dominant process than oxide formation. These results suggest that SiO2 thin film formation can be controlled by energy per molecule.