Deposition And Characterization Of Silicon And Carbon Nitride

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe attempted to deposit carbon nitride films on flat Si (111) substrates and on sharp <111>-oriented silicon needles in a radio frequency (rf) inductively coupled plasma system utilizing a graphite source and a nitrogen plasma. The resultant polycrystalline films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). Both selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and lattice imaging were used to identify and characterize the particles, which grew as faceted crystals up to 1 Rm in size. From SAED, high resolution TEM, and EELS, it was found that the particles on the Si needles were α-Si3N4 and that those on the Si wafer were mostly β-Si3N4 and β-C3N4, with some β-C3N4 possible. Auger quantitative analysis suggests that β-C3N4 could be stabilized by the presence of silicon, resulting in a material with compositions CxSiyNz.