The off-stoichiometry silicon oxide SiO x (x < 2), known as silicon-rich oxide (SRO), and siliconimplanted thermal silicon oxide (SITO) have shown noticeable photoluminescence (PL) at room temperature. Recently, many efforts to increase the PL in these materials have been made. In our experiments, a considerable increase of the visible emission has been observed when the SRO is super-enriched by silicon implantation. In this experiment, SITO and LPCVD-SRO with different silicon excess, Si implanted and no implanted were studied. Different doses of silicon, and annealing in N 2 at different temperature and times were used. PL response was measured before and after annealing. The emission is explained as the decay between traps in the oxide gap. . Also, some effort to correlate the structural properties and the luminescence of these materials has been made [5,6]. Furthermore, the SRO films have been superenriched with silicon implantation [4] and the luminescent properties have been improved. In this work, SITO films were prepared by silicon thermal oxidation and SRO films were prepared by LPCVD. Some samples were implanted with silicon and subsequent annealing was applied during several time intervals. The PL of all of the samples was measured. The emission was studied as a function of silicon excess and annealing time and temperature. Data analysis was done, and a donor-acceptor electron-decay-like mechanism is used to explain the experimental results.

This paper describes the science underlying the synthesis and characterization of microcrystalline diamond (MCD) to ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films on hafnium oxide (HfO 2) thin films, grown on flat Si substrates and micro-pillars on Si substrates, for the first time. Using as a novel inter-phase layer for the integration of microcrystalline (1-3 µm grain size), nanocrystalline (10-200 nm grain size), and ultrananocrystalline diamond (3-5 nm grain size) as coatings on substrates used in transformational technologies such as silicon, oxides, and metals that need protective corrosion/mechanical abrasion resistant coatings is developed in this work. Atomic layer deposition was used to grow HfO 2 films with 5, 10, 30 and 100 nm in thickness, while hot filament chemical vapor deposition was used to grow diamond films, respectively. High resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron and Raman spectroscopies revealed the formation of an atomic scale hafnium carbide (HfC) interphase layer on the surface of the HfO 2 film, which provides efficient nucleation for diamond film growth to produce tailored diamond surfaces on flat Si substrates and Si micropillars on flat Si substrates, for new transformational micro/nano-electronics and other high-tech technologies.

No abstract

At the 32 nm technology node and beyond, strain engineering remains a critical approach for enhancing the performance of advanced logic devices. Selective epitaxial growth of SiGe into the source/drain regions of pMOS transistors is used to introduce uniaxial compressive strain the Si channel in order to improve the hole mobility. A similar approach using Si:C is being investigated to introduce uniaxial tensile strain for future nMOS transistors, which should improve the electron mobility beyond what is possible using SiN stress-liners alone. The increased complexity and use of selective epitaxial processes is challenging conventional in-line metrology.

Off Stoichiometric Silicon Oxide, or Silicon Rich Oxide (SRO), obtained by LPCVD was studied by Photo, Cathode and Thermo luminescence. The Silicon excess in the SRO films varied between 2 and 12 % at. In the deposited samples, the luminescence was observed in the blue region by all techniques. This is an indication that the high temperature used during the deposit produces point defects. After annealing at 1100 °C in nitrogen during 3 hours, the blue emission is still observed suggesting that the nanopoints responsible of the blue emission are not affected. However, after annealing, the photoluminescence of SRO 30, with 5 % of silicon excess, shows drastic increase of the red emission contrarily to the cathodoluminescence, which, after annealing the blue emission, has a big increment. This contradictory observation cannot be explained as a simple emission of oxide defects, rather a mixed model that includes the effect of charge trapping characteristic of the SRO and coulombic interaction, is proposed. Still, more work has to be done to have a detailed mixed model that predicts the emission of the SRO films obtained by LPCVD.