Kinetics of dry oxidation of silicon after implantation of fluorine in the oxide layer are investigated. It appeared that implanted fluorine can result in negative values of the linear oxidation rate constant. Fluorine profiles obtained by the nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) method using a resonant19F(&agr;, p)22Ne nuclear reaction will be presented. At 1200 °C the fluorine moves to the interface of Si and SiO2, both in dry oxidizing and inert atmospheres. Based on these findings, a model is presented that explains quantitatively the observed anomalous behavior of the linear oxidation rate constant.