Plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition of silica thin films in an integrated distributed electron cyclotron resonance reactor

Abstract The deposition of amorphous SiO 2 at low temperature in an integrated distributed electron cyclotron resonance (IDECR) reactor is studied. Due to planar geometry such deposition process can be scaled-up for processing of large surfaces. Stoichiometric and dense silica films are deposited without bias at room temperature from a SiH 4 +O 2 mixture at high deposition rates (>2 nm/s). Optical properties of the films are analyzed by UV-visible spectroellipsometry. The influence of gas flows, pressure and microwave power is investigated. The gas phase is found to determine the film stoichiometry, the SiH 4 flow being the growth rate limiting factor. Optical properties match those of thermal silica. Electrical properties appear promising even for electronic applications.