Study of Amorphous Silicon Nitride films by Brillouin Spectroscopy

The elastic properties of hydrogenated silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) films, with x=1, have been investigated by means of the Brillouin light scattering technique. The films were deposited on an opaque substrate (silicon) in order to improve the scattering efficiency from acoustic phonons in the film. Measurement of the frequency shift of Brillouin peaks relative to both the surface Rayleigh Mode and the longitudinal bulk waves enabled us to determine the two independent elastic constants c11 and c44.