Properties of non‐stoichiometric nitrogen doped LPCVD silicon thin films

Abstract

The influence of nitrogen on the internal structure and so on the electrical properties of silicon thin films obtained by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) was studied using several investigation methods. We found by using Raman spectroscopy and SEM observations that a strong relationship exists between the structural order of the silicon matrix and the nitrogen ratio in film before and after thermal treatment. As a result of the high disorder caused by nitrogen on silicon network during the deposit phase of films, the crystallization phenomena in term of nucleation and crystalline growth were found to depend upon the nitrogen content. Resistivity measurements results show that electrical properties of NIDOS films depend significantly on structural properties. It was appeared that for high nitrogen content, the films tend to acquire an insulator behavior.

Measurements of residual stresses in Al film/silicon nitride substrate microcantilever beam systems

“…28-30 EDX analysis of Si x N y shows a nonfixed ratio of x to y, which indicates that the LPCVD silicon nitride herein is nonstoichiometric, i.e., SiN x . 31 For coated microcantilevers, the radius of curvature and surface roughness of microcantilevers as functions of Al film thickness are shown in Figs. 3(a) and 3(b), respectively.…”

Formation of silicon nanocrystals by thermal annealing of low-pressure chemical-vapor deposited amorphous SiNx (x=0.16) thin films

“…Indeed, the excess of silicon in films allows high silicon crystallites concentration after heat treatment while the nitrogen atoms increase the disorder in the silicon network during the film deposit phase [15] in one hand and suppress the crystallites growth during the thermal annealing process, in the other hand. We combine in our crystallization process a high temperature annealing (1100 °C) to activate the nucleation phenomena with a short annealing duration (1 min) in order to avoid an eventual enhancement in the silicon crystallites sizes.…”