Patent ID: 7273638

Claim:
A method of oxidizing a substrate using a radio frequency plasma reactor, the substrate having a substrate surface comprised of dissimilar silicon-containing materials capable of being converted to an oxide and having a surface area of at least 30,000 mm 2 , comprising: providing a mixture of oxygen-bearing gas and diluent gas normally non-reactive to oxygen, the diluent gas being selected from the group consisting of Ne, Ar, Xe, and Rn; ionizing the oxygen and diluent gas mixture in the radio frequency plasma reactor to create a plasma having an electron density of at least 1e12 cm −3 , the ionized oxygen and diluent gas mixture forming energetic particles including atomic oxygen in the plasma; and oxidizing said substrate surface with the energetic particles created in the plasma to form an oxide film of substantially uniform thickness such that oxide film thickness variation between the dissimilar materials is less than 20%.