Optical and electrical characteristics of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition boron carbonitride thin films derived from N-trimethylborazine precursor

•Thin BCxNy films have been obtained by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition.•N-trimethylborazine was used as a precursor.•Low temperature BCxNy films were found to be high optical transparent layers (93%).•BCxNy layers are dielectrics with dielectric constant k = 2.2–8.9.

Thin BCxNy films have been obtained by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using N-trimethylborazine as a precursor. The films were deposited on Si(100) and fused silica substrates. The grown films were characterized by ellipsometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, spectrophotometry, capacitance–voltage and current–voltage measurements. The deposition parameters, such as substrate temperature (373–973 K) and gas phase composition were varied. Low temperature BCxNy films were found to be high optical transparent layers in the range of 300–2000 nm, the transmittance as high as 93% has been achieved. BCxNy layers are dielectrics with dielectric constant k = 2.2–8.9 depending on the synthesis conditions.