Properties study of silicon carbide thin films prepared by electron cyclotron resonance plasma technology

¹ Institute of Electrical Engineering, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 84104 Bratislava, Slovakia
² Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Joliot-Curie 6, 141980 Dubna, Russian Federation

^a e-mail: albin.valovic@savba.sk

Received: 14 April 2011
Revised: 27 July 2011
Accepted: 3 September 2011
Published online: 28 October 2011

Abstract

Silicon carbide films were deposited at two deposition temperatures 350 °C and 450 °C by means of ECR plasma reactor with two gas mixtures: (1) gas mixture, SiH₄ (5 sccm), CH₄ (14 sccm), Ar (6 sccm), NH₃ (2 sccm) and (2) gas mixture SiH₄ (5 sccm), CH₄ (14 sccm), H₂ (6 sccm), NH₃ (2 sccm). The concentration of species in the SiC films was determined by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and elastic recoil detection (ERD) analytical method simultaneously. Chemical compositions were analyzed by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra were measured at 300 K. The RBS and ERD results showed that the concentrations of Si and C in the films are practically the same. The concentration of hydrogen decreased from 30 to 22 at.% with an increasing sample deposition temperature. The films contain a small amount of nitrogen and oxygen. IR results showed the presence of Si-C, Si-N, Si-H, C-H and Si-O bonds. PL results showed the decrease of the PL intensity with an increasing sample deposition temperature.