in integrated circuit technology, the strong need for thin dielectrics that exhibit greater resistance to impurity diffusion and high electrical properties makes sio/sub 2/ nitridation very attractive. in this work, 10 and 15 nm thermally grown silicon dioxide films were nitrided in nh/sub 3/ at 950 degrees c for various times between 1 and 6 h. treatments were performed in a thermally assisted rf plasma equipment. auger electron spectroscopy analysis and step-by-step chemical etch profiling measurements provide the authors with the as-obtained film composition emphasizing a preferential nitridation of the surface. elastic recoil detection analysis shows that less than 3 at. percent of hydrogen was incorporated after a 6 h nitridation. to investigate the nitrided oxide electrical properties, capacitors were fabricated. the plasma nitridation step results in interfacial characteristics very similar to those of sio/sub 2/ films. finally, the ability of the nitrided films to prevent boron diffusion from an ion implanted polycrystalline source was studied using spreading resistance measurements