Permeation barrier performance of Hot Wire-CVD grown silicon-nitride films treated by argon plasma

In this work SiNx thin films have been deposited by Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition (HW-CVD) technique to be used as encapsulation barriers for flexible organic electronic devices fabricated on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates. First results of SiNx multilayers stacked and stacks of SiNx single-layers (50 nm each) separated by an Ar-plasma surface treatment are reported. The encapsulation barrier properties of these different multilayers are assessed using the electrical calcium degradation test by monitoring changes in the electrical conductance of encapsulated Ca sensors with time. The water vapor transmission rate is found to be slightly minimized (7 × 10− 3 g/m2day) for stacked SiNx single-layers exposed to argon plasma treatment during a short time (2 min) as compared to that for stacked SiNx single-layers without Ar plasma treatment.