ABSTRACT
Most metals are thermodynamically unstable in contact with oxygen; when exposed to air they react spontaneously to form an oxide. The reaction of a metal or semiconductor with oxygen that takes place in the absence of an electrolyte at temperatures where solid-state diffusion plays a negligible role is referred to as lowtemperature oxidation. During low temperature oxidation, the rate of oxide growth decreases strongly with increasing film thickness, and becomes practically zero once the oxide thickness reaches a few nanometers. As a result, low-temperature oxidation involves the transformation of an extremely small amount of metal and generally poses no major problems in terms of corrosion. On the other hand, the presence of a thin oxide film greatly affects the surface properties of metals such as adhesion, friction and wear. Low temperature oxidation of silicon plays an important role in the fabrication of integrated circuits, where silicon oxide serves as a dielectric.
