Influence of deposition and annealing at NANOHARDNESS amorphous Si-C-N films

Abstract

The results for Si–C–N films deposited by a plasma-chemical method using hexamethyldisilazane as a main precursor are reported. The influence of discharge power, an amount of added nitrogen, substrate bias, substrate temperature, and annealing on film properties is investigated. As revealed, nanohardness (H) and Young's module (E) are the most sensitive to substrate temperature and substrate bias. An increase of most deposition parameters leads to increasing both H and E due to an enhancement of the Si–C and Si–N bonds. On the contrary, H and E decrease with increasing discharge power mostly because of formation of Si–O bonds. The deposited films are amorphous, and their surface roughness is comparable to the surface roughness of silicon substrates. Annealing in vacuum does not affect significantly on the structure, surface morphology, and values of H and E