Deposition of silicon films in presence of nitrogen plasma—A feasibility study

Abstract

A design, development and validation work of plasma based ‘activated reactive evaporation (ARE) system’ is implemented for the deposition of the silicon films in presence of nitrogen plasma on substrate maintained at room temperature. This plasma based deposition system involves evaporation of pure silicon by e-beam gun in presence of nitrogen plasma, excited by inductively coupled RF source (13.56 MHz). The activated silicon reacts with the ionized nitrogen and the films get deposited on silicon substrate. Different physical and process related parameters are changed. The grown films are characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and ellipsometry. The results indicate that the film contains silicon nitride and a phase of silicon oxy nitride deposited even at room temperature. This shows the feasibility of using the ARE technique for the deposition of silicon films in nitrogen plasma.