Evaluation of valence band top and electron affinity of SiO2 and Si-based semiconductors using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

Abstract An evaluation method for the energy level of the valence band (VB) top from the vacuum level (VL) for metals, dielectrics, and semiconductors from the results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is presented for the accurate determination of the energy band diagram for materials of interest. In this method, the VB top can be determined by the energy difference between the onset of VB signals and the cut-off energy for secondary photoelectrons by considering the X-ray excitation energy ( h ν). The energy level of the VB top for three kinds of Si-based materials (H-terminated Si, wet-cleaned 4H-SiC, and thermally grown SiO 2 ) has been investigated by XPS under monochromatized Al Kα radiation ( h ν = 1486.6 eV). We have also demonstrated the determination of the electron affinity for the samples by this measurement technique in combination with the measured and reported energy bandgaps ( E g ).