The effects of annealing on the structural properties of radio-frequency sputtered amorphous silicon carbide films prepared under different hydrogen partial pressures (PH) were investigated. Infrared (IR) results of the as-prepared films suggest that as PH increases, more hydrogen is incorporated into the film to form the Si–H and C–H bonds and less silicon and carbon atoms are available to form the Si–C bonds. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results of the as-prepared films agree with the IR results in that the percent of Si–C decreases and the percent of Si–H and C–H increases as PH increases. IR and XPS results of the annealed films suggest that as the annealing temperature increases, the dangling Si and C bonds will combine to form the Si–C bonds for the unhydrogenated samples. The increase in Si–C bonds for the hydrogenated samples is more likely to be due to the formation of Si–C bonds from the breaking up of the Si–H and C–H bonds.

The effect of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on radio frequency (rf) sputtered amorphous silicon carbide films prepared under different hydrogen partial pressures (PH) was examined. The structural study showed that the effect of RTA on the film properties was similar to that of furnace annealing. Therefore, the mechanisms suggested for furnace annealing could equally be applied to the RTA case. The electrical results showed that the effects of RTA and furnace annealing on interface trapped charge density (Dit) for the unhydrogenated films can be explained satisfactorily using the conclusions obtained from the structural study. For the hydrogenated films, the influence of annealing on Dit warrants further investigation.

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