Optical emission spectroscopy of glow discharge plasma from SiH4-CH4 system.

We used plasma optical emission spectroscopy to investigate the plasma state generated by a radio frequency glow discharge in a monosilane and methane gas mixture. To produce the glow discharge in the gas, we used the source gases separated plasma CVD (SSP-CVD) method proposed in this research, and the conventional diode method. We studied the flow rate ratio and the radio frequency power dependence of the source gases with the plasma optical emission characteristics generated using these methods, and investigated the relationship between the optical emission states and bond states of the elements in films. We found that the optical emission intensities of SiH and CH radicals in the plasma are related to the carbon content and C-Si-H bonds in a-SiC:H films. Furthermore, we found that more H2 radicals than H radicals exist in plasmas generated by the SSP-CVD method than in those generated by the conventional method. We used the above results to study the decomposition process of SiH4-CH4 gases. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 90(2): 9 –16, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (<URL>www.interscience.wiley.com</URL>). DOI 10.1002/ ecjb.20285 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]