Formation of Inorganic Films by Remote Plasma-Enhanced Chemical-Vapor Deposition

Plasma chemistry aspects of a-Si:H deposition using an expanding thermal plasma

“…In the past other types of remote plasmas have been used to deposit high quality a-Si:H films. [9][10][11][12][13] The major advantage of remote plasma is the absence of direct plasma contact with the substrate and therefore absence of ionic species ͑with possible high energy ions͒ and ultraviolet ͑UV͒ radiation. This leads to less surface damage and bulk defects which could be advantageous for radical dominated plasma deposition processes such as a-Si:H deposition.…”

Remote PECVD : a Route to Controllable Plasma Deposition

“…Approximately 40 papers, mainly related to deposition of silicon based materials have been published. Most of these were reviewed by Lucovsky et a1 [3].…”

“…It is clear that, although this problem will be less marked than in the case of conventional PECVD, because only the less reactive gas species are generally excited, it can not be completely overcome because of the nature of a glow discharge, created by subjecting the initial gases to an electromagnetic RF field. In the remote plasma deposition processes, charged particles (accelerated electrons and ions) are likely to be easily transported by the gas flow from the discharge generation region to the point of mixing of the initial reagents [ 3 ] . These charged particles are characterised by a continuous electron energy distribution over a wide range, and the above mentioned formation of different reacting species takes place in the region of mixing due to collisions of molecules of precursors with the charged particles.…”

“…According to Lucovsky, who has made extensive studies of remote plasma processes, there are two main features of these kind of processes: (1) the substrate must be placed outside of the plasma generation region and (2) "not all of the process gases are subjected to direct plasma excitation" [3]. In accordance with these features there are at least two types of modifications for the remote PECVD processes depending on which of the methods of RF power coupling into the reaction chamber is used.…”

“…One approach is to generate the plasma away from the substrate, so that there is less chance of plasma bombardment of the growing film. However, the advantages of this technique are still not completely clear in spite of considerable research which has been carried out [2,3].…”