Stress and Refractive Index of PECVD SiO₂ films at Different Deposition Conditions

This paper reports how different deposition parameters impact silicon dioxide (SiO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>) film characteristics when formed using a Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) machine. We determined that changes in the ratio of the precursor gases used (SiH<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</inf> and N<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>O) had the most dramatic impact on stress, refractive index and growth rate. Refractive indices between 1.45 and 2.1 are reported.