Paper PS1-WeM11
Mechanistic Influence of Substrate Temperature on the Plasma Deposition of Carbon Nitride Materials

Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 11:20 am, Room 304

In an effort to elucidate important processes involved in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), our lab has employed several diagnostic tools to characterize the gas phase, film properties, and gas-surface interface under similar PECVD conditions. This work focuses on the application of these tools to the particular case of amorphous hydrogenated carbon nitride (a-CN_x:H) materials, which have a number of potential commercial applications. PECVD of a-CN_x:H has been performed in inductively coupled rf plasmas using precursors that favor the formation of the CN radical, a likely contributor in the deposition process. CN was characterized in the gas phase using laser-induced fluorescence and mass spectrometry. Results suggest probable formation mechanisms and provide information about the energetics of the formed radicals. The imaging of radicals interacting with surfaces (IRIS) technique was used in these studies as a means of probing the behavior of CN radicals at the surface of the growing film under both ambient and heated-substrate conditions. These results, along with deposition rate and film composition data obtained as a function of substrate temperature, provide a more complete understanding of the interaction of plasma species with heated substrates in these systems.