Growth mechanism and chemical structure of amorphous hydrogenated silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) films formed by remote hydrogen microwave plasma CVD from a triethylsilane precursor: Part 1

Amorphous hydrogenated silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) films are produced by remote microwave hydrogen plasma (RHP)CVD using triethylsilane (TrES) as the single-source precursor. The reactivity of particular bonds of the precursor in the activation step is examined using tetraethylsilane as a model compound for the RHP-CVD experiments. The susceptibility of a TrES precursor towards film formation is characterized by determining the yield of RHP-CVD and comparing it with that of the trimethylsilane precursor. The effect of substrate temperature (Ts) on the rate of the RHP-CVD process, chemical composition, and chemical structure of the resulting a-SiC:H films is reported. The substrate temperature dependence of the film growth rate implies that film growth is independent of the temperature and RHP-CVD is a mass transport-limited process. The examination of the a-SiC:H films, performed by means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA), and Fourier transform infrared absorption spectroscopy (FTIR), reveals that the increase in the substrate temperature from 30 °C to 400 °C causes the elimination of organic moieties from the film and the formation of a Si-carbidic network structure. On the basis of the results of the structural study, the chemistry involved in film formation is proposed. © 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.Peer Reviewe