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In this study, the rate equation is considered for outgassing of H2O from spin-on-glass during heating cycles. Also considered is the identity of the film species which desorbs. Previous studies have provided processing engineering information about how much the samples must be heated to desorb the water and how long the samples can be exposed to room temperature before readsorption. In this study, residual gas analyzer thermal analysis data are analyzed using methods suggested recently in the technical literature and it is determined that the desorption reaction is second order with an activation energy of ∼19 kcal/mol. Using Fourier-transform infrared, it is shown that the desorption reaction which gives off the H2O during heating involves the reduction of near-neighbor hydrogen bonded silanols to produce Si–O–Si and a water molecule.

This work addresses the issues of whether spectroscopic ellipsometry, using the effective medium approximation (SE-EMA), may be used meaningfully to analyze plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition silicon nitride films. We use Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy as reference methods and compare the results to the results of SE-EMA analyses and Auger analyses. The results are that Auger analysis, using properly determined sensitivity factors, gives compositions which are within the uncertainty of the reference methods. SE-EMA, on the other hand, always overestimates the oxide contribution and underestimates the nitride contribution. Probable causes are discussed.

In hydrofluoric acid, silicon nitride normally etches slowly, but the etch rate is not zero. We and others(I) have, on occasion, observed silicon nitride which could not be etched in concentrated HF. The purpose of this brief communication is to report the observation of crystalline silicon nitride in a situation where the expected form was amorphous silicon nitride. This material is not etched by HF, and we believe that this observation also explains several other phenomena observed for this material. This brief communicatlon does not attempt to describe how and why the crystalline material is formed since that is the subject of a much longer work which is still in progress.

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