Silicon Nitride Thin Film Deposition Using ECR Plasma

Silicon nitride thin film (SiN
_x
) is deposited onto the 3 inch silicon wafer using ECR plasma apparatus. For the two different plasma extraction window size, the thin films which were deposited by changing the SiH
₄
N
₂
gas flow rate at 1.5mTorrr without substrate heating are analyzed through the XPS and ellipsometer measurements. The very uniform and good quality silicon nitride thin film were obtained with the large plasma extraction window. The characteristics of ECR plasma were inferred from the analyzed results of the deposited films, and particularly, ion temperature perpendicular to the magnetic field was nearly same as the neutral gas temperature. The large amount of plasma loss in the transport process following magnetic field lines could be seen from the plasma emission intensity measurements.