Mechanical and etching properties of dual ion beam deposited hydrogen-free silicon nitride films

Abstract

Articles you may be interested inEffects of increasing nitrogen concentration on the structure of carbon nitride films deposited by ion beam assisted deposition Mechanical properties and residual stress in AlN/Al mixed films prepared by ion-beam-assisted depositionThe synthesis, characterization, and mechanical properties of thick, ultrahard cubic boron nitride films deposited by ion-assisted sputtering Hydrogen-free silicon nitride (SiN x ) with x varying from 0 to 1.3 were prepared by sputtering a Si target with concurrent nitrogen ion (N 2 ϩ ) assist at an energy of 250 eV. The value of x saturated at 1.3 when the assist N 2 ϩ beam current was higher than 25 mA. As x increases from 0 to 1.3, the hardness of the films increases from 12.2 to 21.5 GPa, the elastic modulus increases from 191 to 256 GPa, the friction coefficient drops from 0.65 to 0.37, the compressive stress rises from Ϫ0.52 to Ϫ1.4 GPa, and the etching rate in buffered hydrofluoric acid increases from a negligible small value to 7 nm min Ϫ1 . Potassium hydroxide does not attack the film at any composition. Ion assist resulted in peening and densification of the film structure, causing the SiN 1.3 films to have high hardness, high stability against oxidation in air, and great compressive stress. Ion bombardment also generated defects, thus giving rise to the moderate etching rate of SiN 1.3 in BHF. The good mechanical and etching properties suggest that dual ion beam deposition SiN x films are potentially useful materials in microelectromechanical devices applications.

Effect of low-k dielectric on stress and stress-induced damage in Cu interconnects

“…The nanoindentation was used for measurement of the properties of SiLK [19]. In case of the properties of tantalum and silicon nitride thin films, a large scatter was observed according to processing conditions such as thickness [21], temperature [22], and contents of nitrogen [21,23], etc. Therefore the well-known bulk properties of tantalum [24] and silicon nitride [25] which are in the range of reported thin film properties of them were adopted in FEA.…”

Tensile strength of zinc oxide films measured by a microbridge method

“…5. 13 For silicon nitride films prepared by LPCVD process involving species with thermal energies as low as ≈0.1 eV, the internal stress is tensile and falls in the range of 0.29 to 1 GPa. This result is rather close to 〈E SiN *〉, further supporting the validity of the microbridge method.…”

Growth and characterization of silicon nitride films for optoelectronics applications

“…The structure of plasma deposited silicon nitride films has been studied by Knolle and Osenbach [12], they used the random binding model to calculate electronegativities for the aSiN:H films. The various properties of Si 3 N 4 deposited films by using PECVD system; electron cyclotron resonance PECVD, helical resonator plasma reactor and dual frequency rf source have been reported by many researchers [3,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Hsieh et al [20] have reported the influence of various kinds of gases along with their flow ratios on the a-SiN x :H films.…”