BORON CARBONITRIDE THIN-FILMS BY PACVD OF SINGLE-SOURCE PRECURSORS

This work investigates the influence of the carrier gases N-2, Ar, and He and the influence of the applied power density (about 1-4 W/cm(2)) on the chemical composition of boron carbonitride films deposited by a PACVD process. The plasma is activated via 13.56 MHz radio frequency . Si(100) wafers were used as substrates and pyridine-borane (PB) and triazaborabicyclodecane (TBBD) as B-C-N-forming single-source precurso rs. Films that were either deposited in He using a low power density o r in N-2 using a high power density showed comparable properties. Anal ysis of these films showed their chemical composition to be BC4N. More over, they exhibited outstanding hardnesses of up to 64 GPa. A simple model describing the acceleration of B, C, and N ions in the plasma to wards the substrate showed comparable ion moments by use of the corres ponding deposition parameters. Basically, it was found that, the highe r the ion momentum, the higher the film hardness.