Deposition of silicon nitride thin films by RF magnetron sputtering: a material and growth process study

Optimization of TiAlN/TiAlON/Si3N4 solar absorber coatings

“…2(c), the refractive index increased with increasing N 2 content and the value was lower than 2 which is the reference value at the considered wavelength for stoichiometric Si 3 N 4 films (Claudio et al, 2008). Similar results have been reported and this was attributed to the contamination of the films by the presence of oxygen and hydrogen (Signore et al, 2012).…”

SiNx Coatings Deposited by Reactive High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering: Process Parameters Influencing the Nitrogen Content

“…For the acquisition of time-resolved data, the orifice faced the target with a distance of 320 mm and had an opening of 300 µm. Here, time-resolved IEDFs of the isotopes 15 N, 29 Si, 30 Si, and 36 Ar were recorded, due to the similarity of the masses and the abundance of Si and N ions. For all measurements, ion energies were recorded between -0.4 eV and 30 eV with a resolution of 0.5 eV and the spectrometer dwell time was set so that the presented data represent an average of at least 30 HiPIMS pulses.…”

“…The elevated electron temperatures indicate low plasma densities caused by the temporary change of the target surface chemistry, which in turn causes lowered sputter yields and secondary electron emission yields. As the target power increases the increasing Tes suggest that the N2 molecule may also be activated according to (5) or (6), where dissociation or excitation (electron quenching) prevails 15,[39][40][41][43][44] . Additionally, recombination reactions 45 like…”

“…Due to the similarity of the masses and the abundance of ions in the chosen experimental set-up, the IEDFs of isotopes 15 N, 29 Si, 30 Si, and Ar, the Ar cluster 2Ar and SiN or Si2 increase in intensity during the second part of the pulse on-time and reach their maximum intensity during pulse off times. This discrimination can mainly be attributed to the mass and dimension of these ionized species, their origin and the effect of gas rarefaction.…”

Impact of auxiliary capacitively coupled plasma on the properties of ICP-CVD deposited a-SiNx:H thin films

“…Physical vapour deposition (PVD), usually radio-frequency or direct-current reactive sputtering [6,7] or sputter deposition using a sintered Si 3 N 4 dielectric target are both viable, low-temperature approaches. But, the usage of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) techniques, which are all based on silicon and nitrogen-containing precursor gases, namely dichlorosilane (SiCl 2 H 2 ), silane (SiH 4 ), ammonium (NH 3 ) and nitrogen (N 2 ), is much more prevalent.…”