Reply to "Coment on dynamics of thermal growth of silicon oxide films on Si"

Abstract

In a Comment on “Dynamics of thermal growth of silicon oxide films on Si” Phys. Rev. B 61, 12992 2000 , Roura and Farjas argue that the values of the kinetics parameters obtained from the model proposed in that paper are not reliable and that the solutions given for different partial pressures are erroneous. Moreover, that the solution from such model is unable to predict the oxidation rate experimentally observed in the thin oxide regime neither the width of the interface. Resorting to experimental results, and old and new results obtained from our model, we show in this Reply that none of the criticisms are solid and that the results of the original paper represent indeed an improvement over the Deal-Grove model. Finally, motivated by one of the issues raised by Roura and Farjas, we present here new fittings of experimental data using our model together with experimental estimates for the interface width between the oxide layer and the silicon substrate. This turned a two parameter fitting problem into a much simpler one parameter procedure.