The effect of hydrogen- and oxygen-plasma treatments on dielectric properties of amorphous carbon nitride films

Amorphous carbon nitride (a-CNx) films made by a reactive sputtering of a carbon target with nitrogen plasma shows high resistivity and high electrical breakdown field. Therefore, a-CNx is a good material as a dielectric material. In this paper, the effects of hydrogen-plasma and oxygen-plasma treatment to the dielectric properties of a-CNx films were studied, discussed and compared. A cyclic process of the deposition of a thin a-CNx film and hydrogen- and oxygen-plasma treatment, which is called the layer-by-layer process (LL), were used to make LLa-CNx and LLa-CNxOy films, respectively. Comparing the results of capacitance made of a-CNx, LLa-CNx, and LLa-CNxOy the most effective treatment to get smaller dielectric constant materials at present was to use hydrogen plasma treatment. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.