Amorphous carbonitride films

Figure 22 shows RBS spectra of amorphous (Raman spectra similar to amorphous diamond like films) carbonitride films deposited at different temperatures using IBAD. Using this technique, maximum nitrogen incorporation was 33% as compared to 57% required for P-C3N4 stoichiometry. The XPS spectra (C Is and N Is) of the film with 33% nitrogen are shown in Figure 23. From these spectra the percentage of single bonded carbon and nitrogen is obtained...

The chemical structure of the films and particularly the incorporation of hydrogen were studies by FTIR (Perkin Elmer 1760). Fig. 8 shows infrared transmittance spectra of silicon carbonitride films (a) and silicon nitride films (b) deposited at 1123 K. The clusters of absorption peaks that appear in both spectra in the 1300 to 1940 and 3320 to 3900 wavenumber (cm i) regions are attributed to atmospheric moisture. CO2 is also detected at around 2345 cm i. For spectrum (b), the strong band at 847 cm-i indicates the formation of amorphous silicon nitride [161. The much weaker peak at 3326 cm i which is due to a N—H stretching vibration indicates the existence of N—H bonds in the films. The Si—N band at 847 cm i appeared to be broadened near its base line around 1173 cm i. This is due to the existence of N-H bonds which exhibit another bending mode at 1170 cm l All the films displayed similar spectra, and there was no indication of an Si—H bond in silicon nitride. In addition to the stro line at 837 cm, resulting from the fundamental stretching of silicon carbonitride [17], the main difference between spectra (a) arid (b) is the presence of a weak Si—H band, which is observed to be more intense in the films deposited below 1123 K. None of the films exUbited the C—H band around 2900 cm i, which is present in the IR spectrum of the precursor. 

Another amorphous phase of carbonitride, C N phase with sp bonding, was shown to be a stable phase which exhibits high electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity similar to that of diamond-like films. The diamond-like properties and non-diamond-like bonding make C N an attractive candidate for applications such as thermal management in high-performance microelectronics. 

Shieh, J., Hon, M.H., 2002. Plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition of titanium aluminum carbonitride/amorphous-carbon nanocomposite thin films. Journal of Vacuum Science Technology A 20 (1), 87—92. 

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