Low-temperature deposition of silicon oxide and silicon nitride by reactive magnetron sputtering

In this study, oxide and nitride films were deposited at room temperature through the reaction of silicon sputtered by argon and oxygen ions or argon and nitrogen ions at 250 and 350 W with 0.67 Pa pressure. It was observed that for both thin films the deposition rates increase with the applied RF power and decrease with the increase of the gas concentration. The Si/O and Si/N ratio were obtained through RBS analyses and for silicon oxide the values changed from 0.42 to 0.57 and for silicon nitride the values changed from 0.4 to 1.03. The dielectric constants were calculated through capacitance–voltage curves with the silicon oxide values varying from 2.4 to 5.5, and silicon nitride values varying from 6.2 to 6.7, which are good options for microelectronic dielectrics.