The annealing kinetics of stress-induced leakage current in ultrathinSiO2has been quantitatively investigated after high temperature bakes. We have found that the defects at the origin of the stress induced-leakage current can be fully annihilated and that it is possible to generate and anneal them several times without deterioration of the oxide quality. Moreover, the activation energy and diffusion coefficient deduced from the recovery time constant of the annealing kinetics are found nearly independent of the oxide thickness. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.