Silicon Carbonitride Films Produced by Remote Hydrogen Microwave Plasma CVD Using a (Dimethylamino)dimethylsilane Precursor

Abstract

Amorphous hydrogenated silicon carbonitride (a-Si:C:N:H) films were produced by remote microwave hydrogen plasma CVD (RP-CVD) using (dimethylamino)dimethylsilane as a single-source precursor. The reactivity of the precursor with atomic hydrogen was characterized using (dimethylamino)trimethylsilane as a model compound. The effects of the substrate temperature (T S ) on the kinetics of the RP-CVD process, and the chemical composition and structure of the resulting film, have been investigated. The temperature dependencies of the mass-and thickness-based film growth rates imply that, for a low substrate temperature range (T S = 30±100 C), film growth is limited by desorption of film-forming precursors, whereas in a high substrate temperature range (T S = 100±400 C) film growth is independent of the temperature, and the rate of RP-CVD is masstransport limited. The increase of the substrate temperature from 30 C to 400 C causes the elimination of organic moieties from the film and the formation of a Si±N and Si±C network structure. The films produced at T S = 300 C were found to be dense materials exhibiting excellent morphological homogeneity, high hardness, and an extremely low friction coefficient. In view of these properties, a-Si:C:N:H films produced by RP-CVD seem to be promising coatings for tribological use.

Reactivity of organosilicon precursors in remote hydrogen microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition of silicon carbide and silicon carbonitride thin‐film coatings

“…[34] Although the values of the reaction heats calculated from equation (19) are very approximate and may differ from the real H values, they are assumed to reveal a general thermodynamic character of presented reactions.…”

“…The susceptibility of particular bonds in the molecules of investigated precursors to react with atomic hydrogen was estimated by our earlier comparative RP-CVD experiments involving some permethylated model compounds, such as tetramethylsilane, [14,17] tetraethylsilane, [18] bis(trimethylsilyl)methane, [17] (dimethylamino)trimethylsilane [19] and hexamethyldisilazne, [20] which are known as effective filmforming precursors for DP-CVD. [21 -23] The inability of these compounds to form films found for all RP-CVD experiments proved that the C-H, C-C, Si-C, Si-N, C-N and N-H bonds are nonreactive, whereas the observed ability of investigated precursors DMS, TrMS, TrES, HMDS, DTMSM, BDMSE, DMADMS, BDMAMS, TDMAS and TMDSN to form films can be attributed to the major role of their Si-H or Si-Si bonds in the activation step of the investigated RP-CVD process.…”

“…[34] The H values were calculated as the difference between the sum of energies of the bonds dissociated in the reagents, E d , and the sum of energies of the bonds formed in the reaction products, E f , as expressed by equation (19):…”

Silicon Carbonitride (SiCN) Films by Remote Hydrogen Microwave Plasma CVD from Tris(dimethylamino)silane as Novel Single‐Source Precursor

“…The decreasing intensity of the Si-CH 2 -N band for T S > 200 8C is mainly due to the thermally induced crosslinking reactions resulting in the formation of silicon carbonitride units with tertiary carbon atoms, such as Si 2 (CH)N or Si(CH)N 2 . The elementary reactions contributing to the growth and crosslinking steps of SiCN films in RPCVD have already been described for (dimethylamino)dimethylsilane [8] and bis(dimethylamino)methylsilane [11] precursors. A marked drop in the intensity of the Si-O band with rising T S (Fig.…”

“…Moreover, the dimethylaminosilyl, Me 2 NSi, groups of the precursor may easily undergo a condensation reaction at elevated temperatures. The present study was undertaken in view of our earlier reports on the SiCN films produced by RPCVD from other aminosilane precursors, such as (dimethylamino)dimethylsilane, [8][9][10] Me 2 NSiHMe 2 , and bis(dimethylamino)methylsilane, [11,12] (Me 2 N) 2 SiHMe, which revealed their very promising useful properties. We describe the effect of substrate temperature on the growth rate, chemical structure, surface morphology, density, and photoluminescence of produced SiCN films.…”