Characterization of N Rich-Silicon Nitride Thin Films Deposited by PECVD

Silicon nitride thin films are very important for their possible use in semiconductor industry and electronic applications. Changing the deposition parameters, silicon nitrides which have many varying optical properties can be produced. In this work, silicon nitride (SiNx) thin films were deposited on silicon substrates using Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique. The silane (SiH4) and ammonia (NH3) were used as reactant gases. Using these reactant gases, nitrogen (N) rich SiNx films were obtained. In order to get information about absorption and bond types in the films, films were analyzed by the help of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was performed. The refractive index, extinction coefficient and band gap energy of the films were changed from 1.86, 0 and 5.38 eV to 2.05, 0.0048 and 4.26 eV, respectively. Using the refractive index, composition of the films were estimated that is [N]/[Si] ratio of the films varied from 1.38 to 1.62. For possible applications of the SiNx films, learning the origin of the light-emission of the films is very important so the photoluminescence (PL) measurements were also used to see the luminescent of the SiNx films which is related to the electronic transitions between the K-center level and the conduction band tail states.