Abstract
We introduce quantitative investigation of initial oxidation process on Si(001)-(2×1) by means of linear optical spectroscopic methods, namely, surface differential reflectance spectroscopy and reflectance difference spectroscopy. Our recent results obtained with these real-time measurement techniques revealed that the transition between two different oxide growth modes, Langmuir-type adsorption and two-dimensional island growth, could be identified. The activation energies were estimated from Arrhenius plots of the oxidation periods for the growth of an oxide monolayer. Our results suggest that a finite activation energy exists for monolayer oxide formation on Si(001)-(2×1) at high temperatures.
