Composition, oxidation, and optical properties of fluorinated silicon nitride film by inductively coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Amorphous fluorinated silicon nitride films have been deposited with the variation of NF₃ flow rate using SiH₄, N₂, Ar, and NF₃ gases by inductively coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition for the first time, and the absolute composition, oxidation mechanism, and optical properties were investigated. The absolute composition including hydrogen was performed by means of elastic recoil detection time of flight. It was found that the oxygen and fluorine contents in the film dramatically increased, but the hydrogen content decreased to below 4 at.% as the NF₃ flow rate increased. The oxidation mechanism could be explained in terms of the incorporation of the activated residual oxygen species in the chamber into the film with unstable open structure by the fluorine-added plasma. It was shown that the density and optical properties such as refractive index, absorption coefficient, and optical energy gap depended on the film composition. The variations of the above properties for fluorinated silicon nitride film could be interpreted by the contents of fluorine and oxygen with high electronegativity.