Silicon nitride thin films have numerous applications in microelectronics and optoelectronics fields due to their unique properties. In this work, silicon nitride thin films were produced using radio frequency (R.F.) magnetron sputtering technique at various sputtering powers. The prepared thin films were characterized with XRD, FE-SEM, FTIR, surface profiler, AFM and spectral reflectance techniques for structure, surface morphology, chemical bonding information, growth rate, surface roughness and optical properties. The results showed that silicon nitride thin films were amorphous in nature. The films were smooth and densely packed with no voids or cracks at the surface. FTIR characterization informed about Si-N bonding existence which confirmed the formation of silicon nitride films. The sputtering power showed the impetus effect on growth rate, surface roughness and optical properties of produced films.

Silicon nitride is a well-known kind of material with numerous applications such as gate dielectrics and etch-masks in semiconductor device fabrication, anti reflective coatings in solar panel manufacturing and optical waveguides in biosensing fields. In this work, Silicon nitride thin films were prepared using radio frequency (R.F.) magnetron sputtering technique at room temperature. The properties of thin films were investigated with respect to sputtering-gas pressure during film deposition. The produced thin films were characterized with spectral reflectance, AFM, FTIR and FE-SEM techniques for growth rate and optical properties, surface roughness and morphology, chemical bonding information and surface micro structures respectively. Spectral reflectance results showed that there existed an optimum value of sputtering-gas pressure for increase in growth rate and beyond that value the growth rate started decreasing. Refractive index was found to increase with increased pressure confirmed the films were Si-rich. AFM results revealed the increment in surface roughness is in direct proportion with working pressure. FTIR results showed the overlapping of Si-N and Si-O characteristic bands and its shift toward higher wave number due to increasing Si content in deposited films. FE-SEM results showed prominent changes in surface micro structure with higher sputtering-gas pressures.

Silicon nitride thin films were deposited on the one-sided P-type polished boron-doped silicon wafer substrate via RF magnetron sputtering using stochimetric silicon nitride target at various target-to-substrate distances. Target to substrate spacing, a nonconventional parameter, was varied to optimize the surface roughness and grain size. This optimization provided a normal distribution of homogenous, densely packed silicon nitride thin film free of surface cracks.. Atomic Force Microscopy was employed to explore the accurate surface roughness parameters of Silicon nitride thin films. The surface roughness and grain analysis for all samples exhibited a direct relation to each other and have an inverse correlation with the target to substrate spacing. The surface morphology of Si3N4 was analyzed by the following parameters; average roughness, root-mean square roughness, maximum peak to valley height, ten-point average roughness, skewness, and kurtosis of the line. The surface roughness of silicon nitride films has notable significance in the manufacturing of bio-sensor based on silicon nitride waveguides.