Argon Assisted Plasma Chemical Vapour Deposition of Amorphous Silicon Carbide Films

Abstract

The sharp variation of carbon incorporation has been reported in amorphous silicon carbide thin films deposited by plasma chemical vapour deposition (CVD) from a mixture of silane, methane, argon and hydrogen by controlling the hydrogen percentage in the mixture of argon and hydrogen used as the diluent gases while other deposition parameters are kept constant. A model based on the reaction kinetics in the plasma has been proposed which successfully explains the sharp changes in the film properties dependent on the carbon content in the film.