A study on electrical and mechanical properties of hybrid-polymer thin films by a controlled TEOS bubbling ratio

Organic-inorganic hybrid-polymer thin films were deposited on silicon(1 0 0) substrates at room temperature by PECVD (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition). Ethylcyclohexane and TEOS (tetraethoxysilane) were utilized as organic and inorganic precursors with hydrogen gas for the ethylcyclohexane bubbler and argon gas for both the TEOS bubbler and as a carrier gas. To compare the electrical and the mechanical properties of the plasma polymerized thin films, we grew the hybrid-polymer thin films under conditions of various TEOS bubbling ratios. MTS nano-indenter was used to measure the hardness and Young's modulus and showed that these values increased as the TEOS bubbling ratio increased, with the highest hardness at 0.8 GPa in this experiment. An impedance analyzer was utilized for the measurements of I-V curves and capacitance, showing the lowest dielectric constant at approximately 1.83, with a leakage current density of 10−8 A/cm2 at 1 MV/cm, respectively.