Annealing of plasma silicon oxynitride films

Abstract

The anneal behavior of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited silicon oxynitride films has been studied using Fourier transform infrared absorption spectroscopy, nuclear reaction analysis, and electron-spin resonance. The anneal temperature range was 500–1000 °C. It is observed that the oxynitrides which contain only N–H bonds are thermally stable in the temperature range under study. The layers which also contain Si–H bonds are considerably less thermally stable. Abundant hydrogen effusion from these layers is observed at temperatures as low as 600 °C, accompanied by cracking and shrinkage of the films. It is suggested that the coexistence of both Si–H and N–H bonds offers the possibility for cross linking and that consequently the decomposition temperature of both types of bonds is lowered. Evidence for the occurrence of cross linking is found in the infrared difference spectra. Consistently, the silicon unpaired electron density does not increase upon annealing. The Si–H and N–H bands effectively shift towards higher wave numbers upon annealing at higher temperatures. This is ascribed to the inhomogeneity in bond strength, which in turn is related to a variation in electronegativity of the surrounding groups.