• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.20-25
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• 1995

Diamond films were prepared by a hot filament vapor deposition onto polycrystal silicon nitride substrates. Different kinds of silicon nitride containing CaO and $Fe_{2}O_{3}$ were manufactured to investigate the impurity effect of substrate on the morphology of diamond films and their wear behaviors. Nucleation rates and morphologies of diamond films deposited on various kinds of silicon nitride were compared. The highest nucleation rate was observed in a substrate containing 1% of CaO. Wear tests were performed with a silicon nitride ball on the disk geometry to investigate the tribological behavior of diamond film against silicon nitride. This study demonstrated that different morphologies of diamond film due to substrate impurities produced different wear behavior against silicon nitride.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1013-1019
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• 2007

Amorphous silicon and silicon-nitride films were deposited using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) method at $150^{\circ}C$. As fraction of $H_2$ in source gas was increased, characteristics of low-temperature silicon-nitride films approached those of conventional high-temperature films; the refractive index approached 1.9 and the ratio of nitrogen-hydrogen bonds to silicon-hydrogen bonds increased. And also, as fraction of $H_2$ in source gas was increased, characteristics of low-temperature silicon films approached those of conventional high-temperature films; refractive index and optical band gap approached 4.2 and 1.8 eV, and $[Si-H]/([Si-H]+[Si-H_2])$ increased. Lower RF power and process-pressure made the amorphous silicon films to be better properties. Increase of $H_2$ ratio seemed as the common factor to get reliable amorphous silicon and silicon-nitride films for thin-film-transistors (TFTs) at low temperature.

• Journal of Information Display
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.109-112
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• 2010

The solid phase compositions and dielectric properties of silicon nitride ($SiN_x$) films prepared using the plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique at a low temperature ($200^{\circ}C$) were studied. Controlling the source gas mixing ratio, R = $[N_2]/[SiH_4]$, and the plasma power successfully produced both silicon-rich and nitrogen-rich compositions in the final films. The composition parameter, X, varied from 0.83 to 1.62. Depending on the film composition, the dielectric properties of the $SiN_x$ films also varied substantially. Silicon-rich silicon nitride (SRSN) films were obtained at a low plasma power and a low R. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra of these films revealed the existence of nano-sized silicon particles even in the absence of a post-annealing process. Nitrogen-rich silicon nitride (NRSN) films were obtained at a high plasma power and a high R. These films showed a fairly high dielectric constant ($\kappa$ = 7.1) and a suppressed hysteresis window in their capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.287-292
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• 1992

Silicon nitride thin film (SiNx) was deposited onto the 3inch silicon wafer using an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma apparatus. The thin films which were deposited by changing the SiH4N2 gas flow rate ratio at 1.5mTorr without substrate heating were analyzed through the x-ray photo spectroscopy (XPS) and ellipsometer measurements, etc. Silicon nitride thin films prepared by the electron cyclotron resonance plasma chemical vapor deposition method at low substrate temperature (<10$0^{\circ}C$) exhibited excellent physical and electrical properties. The very uniform and good quality silicon nitride thin films were obtained. The characteristics of electron cyclotron resonance plasma were inferred from the analyzed results of the deposited films.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.5 s.276
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• pp.359-365
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• 2005

Silicon nitride coating films with various ratios of nitrogen to silicon contents were prepared and characterized. The film was coated on silicon substrate by sputtering method with changing nitrogen gas flow rate in a chamber. The nitrogen to silicon ratio was found to have values in a range from 0 to 1.4. Coated film was characterized with scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis, nanoindentation scanning probe microscopy, x-ray photon spectrometry, and Raman spectrometry. Silicon nitride phase in all samples showed amorphous nature regardless of N/Si ratio. When N/Si ratio was 1.25, hardness and elastic modulus of silicon nitride film showed maximum with 22 GPa and 210 GPa, respectively. Those values decreased, when N/Si ratio was higher than 1.25. Raman spectrum showed that no silicon phase exist in the film. XPS result showed that the silicon-nitrogen bond was dominant way for atomic bonding in the film. The structure and property was explained with Random Bonding Model(RBM) which was consistent with the microstructure and chemistry analysis for the coating films.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.141-145
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• 2004

Silicon nitride thin films were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique in a batch-type reactor by alternating exposures of precursors. XJAKO200414714156408$_4$ or$ SiH_2$$Cl_2$ was used as the Si precursor, $NH_3$ was used as the N precursor, and the deposited films were characterized comparatively. The thickness of the film linearly increased with the number of deposition cycles, so that the thickness of the film can be precisely controlled by adjusting the number of cycles. As compared with the deposition using$ SiCl_4$, the deposition using $SiH_2$$Cl_2$ exhibited larger deposition rate at lower precursor exposures, and the deposited films using $SiH_2$$Cl_2$ had lower wet etch rate in a diluted HF solution. Silicon nitride films with the Si:N ratio of approximately 1:1 were obtained using either Si precursors at $500^{\circ}C$, however, the films deposited using $SiH_2$$Cl_2$ exhibited higher concentration of H as compared with those of the $SiC_4$ case. Silicon nitride thin films deposited by ALD showed similar physical properties, such as composition or integrity, with the silicon nitride films deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition, lowering deposition temperature by more than $200^{\circ}C$.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2016

Silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are generally used as antireflection layers and passivation layers on solar cells. In this study, we investigated the properties of silicon nitride ($SiN_x:H$) films made by PECVD. The passivation properties of $SiN_x:H$ are focused on by making the antireflection properties identical. To make equivalent optical properties of silicon nitride films, the refractive index and thickness of the films are fixed at 2.0 and 90 nm, respectively. This limit makes it easier to evaluate silicon nitride film as a passivation layer in realistic application situations. Next, the effects of the mixture ratio of the process gases with silane ($SiH_4$) and ammonia ($NH_3$) on the passivation qualities of silicon nitride film are evaluated. The absorption coefficient of each film was evaluated by spectrometric ellipsometry, the minority carrier lifetimes were evaluated by quasi-steady-state photo-conductance (QSSPC) measurement. The optical properties were obtained using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. The interface properties were determined by capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement and the film components were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy detection (RBS) - elastic recoil detection (ERD). In hydrogen passivation, gas ratios of 1:1 and 1:3 show the best surface passivation property among the samples.

• 전기의세계
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.43-50
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• 1979

Silicon nitride films were chemically deposited on silicon substrates by reacting SiCl$_{4}$ and NH$_{3}$ in a nitrogen atmosphere at 700~1100 .deg.C. The deposition rate increased rapidly with deposition temperature upto about 1000 .deg.C, and became less temperature dependent above this temperature. The etch rate of films in buffered HF solution decreased, with an increase of deposition temperature, and a heat treatment at a temperature higher than that of the deposition considerably reduced the etch rate. It indicates that the heat treatment resulted in a densification of the films. Surface charge density of 3~4 * 10$^{11}$ /cm$^{2}$ was determined from the C-V characteristics of MNS diode, and it was also found that surface charge density depended on deposition temperature, but not film thickness. The current-voltage characteristics displayed a logI-V$^{1}$2/ dependence in the temperature range of 300~500.deg.K. Measurement of the slope of this characteristics and its dependence on temperature and bias polarity suggest that conduction in sili con nitride films arises from the Poole-Frenkel mechanism.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.964-967
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• 2002

The effectiveness of silicon nitride SiNx surface passivation is investigated and quantified. This study adopted single-layer antireflection (SLAR) coating of SiNx for efficiency improvement of solar cell. The silicon nitride films were deposited by means of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) in planar coil reactor. The process gases used were pure ammonia and a mixture of silane and helium. The thickness and the refractive index on the films were measured by ellipsometry and chemical bonds were determined by using an FT-IR equipment. This films obtained were analyzed in term of hydrogen content, refractive index for gas flow ratio $(NH_3/SiH_4)$, and efficiency of solar cell. The polycrystalline silicon solar cells passivated by silicon nitride shows efficiency above 12.8%.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1990.11a
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• pp.115-118
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• 1990

Recently, it has been reported that the Insulating films deposited by PECVD show some degradation under somewhat high electric field. In this paper, we Introduce silicon nitride films deposited by LCVD, and evaluate the breakdown and wear-out of these films by TDDB test. Further, failure times against electric field are examined and acceleration factors $\gamma$ are obtained for each case. As a result, it is shown that the breakdown and wear-out limitation for these films is improved.