Preparation of SiC thin film using organosilicon by remote plasma CVD method

An organosilicon compound, hexamethyldisilane (HMDS) was incorporated for SiC thin film preparation by remote plasma enhanced CVD method. We investigated how plasma excited radicals react with source monomers using two kinds of gas mixtures. It was found that film component and formation mechanism depends on stronger on plasma gases. Using a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen gases as plasma gas source, deposited films contained large amounts of nitrogen. When using an argon and hydrogen mixture, deposited film was a SiC with large hydrogen contents. In this research, we found that hydrogen radicals are very active for decomposition of monomer source gas and this can be related to precursors for film deposition. When using a mixture of argon and hydrogen as plasma gas, the film deposition speed was influenced by substrate temperature. The estimated activation energy was larger than the case of using nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Different reaction mechanisms were observed for different plasma gas source.