Determining the amount of Si-Si bonding in CVD oxynitrides

In this work we propose a method of determining the amount of excess Si in chemical vapor deposited (CVD) oxynitrides that is due to silicon bonded to other silicon (the amount of excess Si due to more-than-normal Si–H bonds can be determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and has been dealt with adequately in the literature). The amount of Si–Si bonding in CVD oxynitride usually represents a small fraction of the total silicon ( 50%), we use the subtractive method to provide a relationship between the extinction coefficient k at a particular wavelength (250 nm) that can be used for typical samples. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.