Thin film deposition using electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma chemical vapor deposition

This thesis included the detail structure of an electron-cyclotronresonance (ECR) system, Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) of hydrogenated silicon carbide alloy (a-S~C 1_x:H) using ECR plasma, ECR plasma diagnostics and the characterization of silicon carbide thin films. The goal is to investigate the correlation among processing condition. plasma property and the thin films quality. Thus, 45 sets of silicon carbide thin films were grown under different processing conditions from diethlsiylane/hydrogen gas mixture using ECR plasma CVD in this thesis. Argon plasma is used to simulate the actual processing conditions for Langmuir probe measurements. The results of the Langmuir probe measurement showed that higher input microwave power produces higher electron density and higher electron temperature, but higher pressure produces lower electron density and electron temperature. The reason was discussed in the thesis. All thin films were characterized using optical absorption and infrared spectroscopy techniques. The optical and the structural properties of these films were then obtained and the discussions of the effects of processing condition and plasma property on these properties were also given in this thesis.