Phase separation by rapid thermal annealing in Si-sub-oxides and -nitrides formed by plasma CVD

Book · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:527664

Banerjee, A; Lucovsky, G ^[1]

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1. North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)

Hydrogenated silicon suboxide and subnitride films were deposited by a remote plasma enhanced chemical-vapor deposition (RPECVD) process. Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) of these alloys eliminated all of the bonded hydrogen and formed a two phase system. The microstructure of the annealed films showed silicon crystallites (c-Si) surrounded by amorphous layers. The amorphous layers were identified as SiO{sub 2} and Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} in the annealed suboxides and subnitrides, respectively. The as-deposited films showed band edge photoluminescence (PL); however, no PL was observed from the annealed films. This indicates that there was no significant suboxide or subnitride bonding in the amorphous layers at the metallurgically-sharp c-Si-SiO{sub 2} and c-Si-Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} interfaces, respectively.

• OSTI ID: 527664
• Report Number(s): CONF-960401--; ISBN 1-55899-323-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
AMMONIA
AMORPHOUS STATE
ANNEALING
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
INTERFACES
OXYGEN
PHASE STUDIES
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
SILANES
SILICON
SILICON NITRIDES
SILICON OXIDES
THIN FILMS