Optical characterization of silicon rich oxide films

A. Morales-Sánchez*, J. Barreto, C. Domínguez-Horna, M. Aceves-Mijares, J. A. Luna-López

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Silicon rich oxide (SRO) films with different silicon excess were deposited by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) using SiH4 and N2O as the reactant gasses. A set of SRO films was implanted with silicon ions (SI-SRO). After thermal annealing, SRO and SI-SRO films with low Si excess showed a strong visible photoluminescence (PL) in the 1.4-2.1 eV range, characteristic of silicon nanocrystals (Si-nc's) formation. For SRO layers, a redshift of the PL peak was only observed by increasing the silicon excess from 4 to 5.1 at. %, no redshift took place when the silicon excess was 12.7 at. %. The SI-SRO films exhibited a similar behaviour. For implanted and non implanted samples, transmission electron microscopy analysis only showed silicon clusters when the silicon excess was higher than 5 at. %. It has been observed that the Si-clusters size was larger as the silicon excess increased and that the Si-clusters density increased when the SRO films were implanted. Therefore, a stronger PL response was observed in the SI-SRO films. The structural and optical properties of SRO and SI-SRO films have been related, suggesting that the emission could be associated to Si-clusters/defects interaction.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)12-18
Number of pages7
JournalSensors and Actuators A: Physical
Volume142
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Mar 2008

Research Groups and Themes

  • Photonics and Quantum

Keywords

  • EFTEM
  • FTIR
  • Photoluminescence
  • Silicon clusters
  • Silicon rich oxide
  • XPS

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