Deposition of silicon carbon nitride thin films by microwave ECR plasma enhanced unbalance magnetron sputtering

Characterization of a N2/CH4 Microwave Plasma With a Solid Additive Si Source Used for SiCN Deposition

“…Their thickness is about 250 nm and a columnar structure is observed. EDXS measurements give almost the same results than those achieved on samples obtained with 4% of CH 4 . FTIR spectra are different in the range from 700 to 1 300 cm À1 .…”

“…The thickness of the film is highly dependent on the methane ratio in the gas mixture. Concerning the experiments made using a gas composition containing 1% of CH 4 , there is almost no deposit. This is in agreement with the lack of Si I lines observed by OES for this gas composition.…”

“…One can obviously see that the CH 4 absorption line is intense in the incoming gas mixture and it becomes very weak in the plasma inducing a very efficient destruction of methane, irrespective of the methane rate and the incident power. As a comparison, at the top of the figure are drawn two spectra corresponding to CH 4 . [9] In Figure 3 Moreover, it is one of the major compounds detected.…”

“…Their band gap, for example, can be tuned between that of SiC (2.6 eV) to that of Si 3 N 4 (5 eV) which make silicon carbonitride materials very suitable to use in optoelectronic applications such as solar cells and short wavelength emitting diodes. [2] Various processes like microwave plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition (MPACVD), [3] reactive radiofrequency sputtering [2] or microwave ECR plasma enhanced magnetron sputtering, [4] are used to produce these thin films.…”

“…Adding a silicon source permits to obtain thicker layers confirming the major role of Si in the carbonitride deposition process. Deposits obtained at 8% of CH 4 have a composition about 35% of Si, 30% C and 30% N and showed evidence of ternary SiCN system. discharge.…”