Dependence of Residual Stress of Diamond-Like Carbon Films on Precursor Gases and Process Parameters of RF PACVD

Abstract

ABSTRACTResidual compressive stress of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films was measured by beam deflection method. DLC films were deposited on thin Si wafers using r.f. plasma decomposition of methane and benzene. Negative bias voltage of the cathode was varied from -100 to -800 V and deposition pressure from 3 to 100 mTorr. When using benzene as precursor gas, the residual stress monotonically increases as increasing . (Here, Vb is the negative bias voltage of cathode and P the deposition pressure.) In case of using methane, however, the residual stress has a maximum value at between 70 and 100 V/mTorr1/2. Because of the difference in molecular size between benzene and methane, the mean free path of ions in benzene discharge is 5 times shorter than that in methane discharge. The contrasting behavior of residual stress is discussed in terms of the difference in ion energies at the specimen surface due to the difference in mean free path. On the other hand, total hydrogen concentration decreases as increasing in both cases. This result thus shows that the total hydrogen concentration cannot be a key to understand the behavior of residual stress.