A. Ortiz et al., STRUCTURAL-PROPERTIES OF LOW-TEMPERATURE SILICON-OXIDE FILMS PREPAREDBY REMOTE PLASMA-ENHANCED CHEMICAL-VAPOR-DEPOSITION, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 140(10), 1993, pp. 3014-3018
High structural quality silicon dioxide films have been prepared by th
e remote plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique using sil
icon tetrachloride and oxygen as source materials, at substrate temper
atures lower than 200-degrees-C. In addition to the source gases, hydr
ogen was fed into the deposition chamber. The role of the H-2 gas is t
o react with the chlorine from the SiCl4 decomposition forming HCl vap
or which is removed from the deposition chamber. The role variations i
n the substrate temperature, plasma power and oxygen, hydrogen, silico
n tetrachloride, and argon flow rates have on the oxide quality are an
alyzed. The samples were characterized by IR spectroscopy, ellipsometr
y, chemical etch rate, and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) measureme
nts. Silicon dioxide films of suitable quality have been prepared at s
ubstrate temperatures as low as 50-degrees-C. Samples prepared at this
temperature with low deposition rates show good structural characteri
stics, such as refractive index, chemical etch rate, and composition n
ear to that of the stoichiometric oxide.