Amorphous silicon carbide and its application in silicon micromachining

Synthesis of Si–C–N coatings by thermal Plasmajet chemical vapour deposition applying liquid precursors

“…8 These coatings show considerable compressive residual stresses, but annealing treatments, which cause hydrogen evolution, can result in complete relaxation or even the development of tensile residual stresses. 10 The more the residual stresses change to tensile, the more the adhesive and cohesive strength of the coatings, and subsequently the wear resistance, is reduced. The changes of the coatings properties have to be considered carefully when PECVD SiC coatings are applied at elevated temperatures.…”

Micro‐ and nanomechanical structures for silicon carbide MEMS and NEMS

“…Typically, the as-deposited film stress in plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD) a-SiC films is compressive, which can be somewhat relaxed through careful adjustment of the deposition parameters [115]. By annealing within a temperature range of 450 °C to 1000 °C [115][116][117], the stress can be converted to a low tensile state. Additionally, rapid thermal annealing at temperatures of 300 °C to 850 °C can also be used to convert the stress state of the film [118].…”

“…This recipe results in an as-deposited film stress of -600 MPa, which can be relieved by lowering the LF power. To convert the film stress to a minimally tensile stress of 2 MPa, a post-deposition anneal at temperatures ranging between 450 °C and 1000 °C can be performed [116][117][118]138].…”

A review of silicon carbide development in MEMS applications

“…The low deposition temperatures also suggest its potential suitability for IC compatible MEMS processing. Many Si and C containing gas precursors such as SiH 4 and CH 4 (Flannery et al, 1998;Sarro et al, 1998) as well as liquid source such as C 6 H 18 Si 2 (hexamethyldisilane) (Klumpp et al, 1994) have been used to form a-SiC by PECVD. The as-deposited SiC films are amorphous and post-deposition annealing is required for crystallisation.…”