Hypothetic impact of chemical bonding on the moisture resistance of amorphous Si_xN_yH_z by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Abstract. The relationship between the microstructure of silicon nitride and its sensitivity to moisture was studied. The effectiveness of Si-H rich and N-H rich silicon nitride layers was measured under attack from water in vapor and liquid states. For water vapor attack, samples are exposed to vapor at 85°C with a relative humidity of 85% during 1600 hours; for liquid water attack, samples are dipped in water at 60, 85 and 100°C for 200 hours. The water resistance of the Si-H rich and N-H rich silicon nitride layers was evaluated by measuring: (i) the thickness of the silicon dioxide formed after their oxidation with water vapor, (ii) the rate of dissolution of the silicon nitride in liquid water and (iii) the corresponding activation of energy. This evaluation was performed by coupling spectroscopic ellipsometry, infra-red and X-ray photoelectron spectrometry analyses. The results revealed that for Si-H rich layer, 10 nm of silicon dioxide was formed during the water vapor attack; for liquid water attack, a high activation energy (0.88 eV) and a low dissolution rate were observed regardless of the water temperature. For N-H rich layers, approximatively 6-8 nm of silicon dioxide was formed and a low activation energy (0.64 eV) with a high dissolution rate were observed. All of these observations lead to the conclusion that the N-H rich layers could be less resistant to moisture because the isoelectronic relationship between Si 2 N-H and ÀH 2 O + facilitated their deterioration in water. Moreover, a higher rate of nanoporosity for N-H rich layers than Si-H rich layer could complete this hypothesis.

24‐4: Research on Water Vapor Penetration of OLED Encapsulation

“…The higher the density, the better the water vapor barrier property. Film A with the best barrier property possessed the highest density of 2.24 g/cm 3 , and the density of the film B and C was lower than A. The density tendency was with same tendency of the FTIR test results.…”

“…With the extension of HTHH storage time, the N-H bond decreased. According to the bond energy data [3] 1. The higher the density, the better the water vapor barrier property.…”

Hydrogen Role on the Properties of Silicon Nitride for Flexible Thin Film Encapsulation

“…The main features of the spectra can be summarized as follows: N─H (3350 cm À1 ), Si-H (2200 cm À1 ) are related to stretching modes, SiN─H (1100 cm À1 ) is related to bending modes and Si─N (890 cm À1 ) is related to asymmetric stretching modes. [33][34][35] bonds and N─H bonds. But when other deposition conditions of the films were kept constant, increasing the hydrogen flow rate could increase the Si─H bond and N─H bond concentration of the films.…”

“…The main features of the spectra can be summarized as follows: NH (3350 cm −1 ), Si–H (2200 cm −1 ) are related to stretching modes, SiNH (1100 cm −1 ) is related to bending modes and SiN (890 cm −1 ) is related to asymmetric stretching modes. [ 33–35 ] Figure 2a–c shows the transmission peaks of each chemical bond in SiN x ‐1 and SiN x H y ‐1 films. The sides of the transmission peaks of NH and SiH become significantly steeper.…”

Failure of a brittle layer on a ductile substrate: Nanoindentation experiments and FEM simulations

“…A typical example of such multilayer stacks can be found at the top surface of most microelectronic chips, where a silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ) film is generally deposited on top of the whole device stack at the final processing step. This layer is an efficient passivation layer against moisture and ambient contaminants (Aberle, 2000;Lin, 2011;Morin et al, 2011;Kaloyeros et al, 2017;Cazako et al, 2018). In standard process flows, it is deposited by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) (Kaloyeros et al, 2017;Gan et al, 2018;Xiang et al, 2019), and fully covers the wafer surface.…”