PASSIVATION AND DEPASSIVATION OF SILICON DANGLING BONDS AT THE SI/SIO2 INTERFACE BY ATOMIC-HYDROGEN

Atomic hydrogen is found to simultaneously passivate and depassivate silicon dangling bonds at the Si(111)/SiO2 interface at room temperature via the reactions P(b)+H-0-->P(b)H and P(b)H+H-0-->P(b)+H-2. The passivation reaction occurs more efficiently keeping the steady-state P(b) density at a low value of only 3-6X10(11) cm-2 during atomic hydrogen exposure. This low P(b) density can only account for a small fraction of the total number of interface states produced by atomic hydrogen.