Publication detail

Adhesion evaluation of a-SiC:H thin films on silicon wafers using the nanoscratch testing technique

PLICHTA, T. ČECH, V. HEGEMANN, D.

Original Title

Adhesion evaluation of a-SiC:H thin films on silicon wafers using the nanoscratch testing technique

Type

abstract

Language

English

Original Abstract

Scratch testing is the most commonly technique for assessing the adhesion of thin films to the substrates and determining its application possibilities. Planar silicon wafers were pretreated with argon plasma using continuous wave for 10 min to clean the surface from adsorbed gases and reach reproducible adhesion of films. Thin films of hydrogenated amorphous carbon-silicon (a-SiC:H) were deposited from tetravinylsilane (TVS) monomer (pulsed plasma with effective power in range 2 – 150 W) on wafers by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Films of 0.1 μm thickness were tested by scratch test using a conical diamond tip (radius of 1 μm) with the peak load up to 10mN and using 10 μm scratch length. Good reproducibility of the film adhesion was found for the individual depositions. No significant effect of loading rate ranging from 4 to 20 mN/min was observed. We revealed that the critical load increased with enhanced power from 1.6mN (2 W) up to 4.6mN (75 W) and was invariable for higher power 4.4mN (150 W). The measurement showed a linear increase in critical normal force in dependence on thickness. Excellent adhesion of the films for 1100 days was observed, with no aging effects.

Keywords

Nanoscratch test, Thin films, Adhesion, PECVD

Authors

PLICHTA, T.; ČECH, V.; HEGEMANN, D.

Released

13. 11. 2017

Publisher

ADAG PRINT

Location

Zürich, Switzerland

Pages from

76

Pages to

76

Pages count

88

URL

https://www.empa.ch/web/s606/phd-symposium-2017

BibTex

@misc{BUT141332,
  author="PLICHTA, T. and ČECH, V. and HEGEMANN, D.",
  title="Adhesion evaluation of a-SiC:H thin films on silicon wafers using the
nanoscratch testing technique",
  year="2017",
  pages="76--76",
  publisher="ADAG PRINT",
  address="Zürich, Switzerland",
  url="https://www.empa.ch/web/s606/phd-symposium-2017",
  note="abstract"
}