Silicon Carbonitride Films by Remote Hydrogen-Nitrogen Plasma CVD from a Tetramethyldisilazane Source

Abstract

The structure, physical, and mechanical properties of amorphous hydrogenated silicon carbonitride films produced by remote hydrogen/nitrogen plasma chemical vapor deposition ͑CVD͒ from 1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisilazane have been investigated. The films deposited at elevated substrate temperature of 300°C and with different content of nitrogen in the hydrogen/nitrogen mixture fed to the plasma were examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The observed changes in the film structure are correlated with the results of optical emission spectroscopy diagnostics of the plasma region. The films' properties are characterized in terms of the density, hardness, elastic modulus, and friction coefficient. The films' resistance to wear is predicted from the slope of hardness-elastic modulus plot. The nitrogen content in the H 2 /N 2 feed gas appears to strongly influence the structure and properties of the films. Using the infrared structural data, reasonable structure-property relationships have been determined.

Reactivity of organosilicon precursors in remote hydrogen microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition of silicon carbide and silicon carbonitride thin‐film coatings

“…The concentration of atomic hydrogen in the near-substrate region in the CVD reactor was determined using the NO 2 titration method, that had been applied in our previous work. [8,17] Concentration of atomic hydrogen corresponding to the near-substrate region in the CVD reactor determined by the titration measurements [17] was [H] = 5 × 10 15 cm −3 and its flow (or feeding) rate…”

“…The susceptibility of particular bonds in the molecules of investigated precursors to react with atomic hydrogen was estimated by our earlier comparative RP-CVD experiments involving some permethylated model compounds, such as tetramethylsilane, [14,17] tetraethylsilane, [18] bis(trimethylsilyl)methane, [17] (dimethylamino)trimethylsilane [19] and hexamethyldisilazne, [20] which are known as effective filmforming precursors for DP-CVD. [21 -23] The inability of these compounds to form films found for all RP-CVD experiments proved that the C-H, C-C, Si-C, Si-N, C-N and N-H bonds are nonreactive, whereas the observed ability of investigated precursors DMS, TrMS, TrES, HMDS, DTMSM, BDMSE, DMADMS, BDMAMS, TDMAS and TMDSN to form films can be attributed to the major role of their Si-H or Si-Si bonds in the activation step of the investigated RP-CVD process.…”

Growth Mechanism and Chemical Structure of Amorphous Hydrogenated Silicon Carbide (a‐SiC:H) Films Formed by Remote Hydrogen Microwave Plasma CVD From a Triethylsilane Precursor: Part 1

“…An important feature of RHP-CVD is that the process is exclusively induced via chemical reactions between the uncharged plasma species, such as hydrogen atoms fed from the plasma region, through the remote section (trap for electrons, ions, and ultraviolet photons) and the source compound molecules, resulting in the formation of only radical active species. [6,9] In contrast, electron impact, which predominates in PCVD, leads to strong fragmentation of the precursor molecules to a variety of radical, ionic, and neutral active species. [7] Moreover, the significantly lower concentration of active species contributing to RHP-CVD, compared to that of PCVD, markedly reduces particle growth in the gas phase, thereby preventing the formation of powder, which often contaminates PCVD films.…”

“…They included dimethylsilane, Me 2 SiH 2 , [6,9] trimethylsilane, Me 3 SiH, [6,9] hexamethyldisilane, (Me 3 Si) 2 , [3,5,6,[9][10][11][12] tetrakis(trimethylsilyl)silane, (Me 3 Si) 4 Si, [2,[4][5][6]9] and (dimethylsilyl)(trimethylsilyl)methane, Me 3 SiCH 2 SiHMe 2 . [6,9,13,14] The present work deals with the fabrication of a-SiC:H films by RHP-CVD using triethylsilane, Et 3 SiH, (TrES) as the single-source precursor. TrES was chosen due to the following features.…”

Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Plasma Deposited Thin Films from Hexamethyldisilazane Compound

“…This material can be obtained by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique, using liquid organosilicone vapor sources such as hexamethyldisilazane (HMDSN) [7,8] and tetramethyldisilazane (TMDSN) [9]. HMDSN has been already used in our previous work [10], where the growth rate, gas sensing and surface properties of the deposited films in RF hollow cathode discharge system, have been investigated, under different plasma conditions (changing the feed gas from argon to nitrogen, and varying the applied RF power between 100 W and 300 W).…”