Deposition of Hydrogen-Free Silicon Nitride Thin Films by Microwave ECR plasma Enhanced Magnetron Sputtering at Room Temperature

Hydrogen-free silicon nitride (SiN_x) films were deposited at room temperature by microwave electron cyclotron resonance (MW-ECR) plasma enhanced unbalance magnetron sputtering system. Both Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are used to study the bonding type and the change of bonding structures of the silicon nitride films. The results indicate that the chemical structure and composition of SiN_x films deposited by this technique depend strongly on the N_x flow rates, the stoichiometric SiN_x film, which has the highest hardness of 22.9GPa, could be obtained at lower N_x flow rate of 4sccm.