Investigation on optical and microstructural properties of photoluminescent LPCVD SiOxNy thin films

Amorphous silicon oxynitride (a-SiOchiNgamma) films of various compositions were deposited by low-pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) at 860 d egreesC and 400 mTorr, using a mixture of SiCl2H-NH3-N2O. The dependence of the film properties on the deposition temperature and the gas flow ratio w as studied by spectroellipsometry (SE) and infrared spectroscopy (IR), To c alculate the optical and microstructural parameters of the films from SE da ta, three different approaches (Bruggeman-EMA, Cauchy and Sellmeier) were u sed. The comparison of the results shows a good agreement between all three models. Photoluminescence (PL) phenomena in as-deposited LPCVD silicon oxy nitride are presented and compared to results reported in literature. (C) 2 001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.