Hydrogen etching of Si3N4 layers with plasma assisted hot wire CVD |
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Authors: | Norbert Kniffler Andrea PfluegerTobias Schulz Sven SommerBernd Schroeder |
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Affiliation: | a Department of Power Systems, University of Applied Sciences, 68163 Mannheim, Germanyb Department of Physics, University of Kaiserslautern, 67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany |
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Abstract: | In order to develop sustainable processes for clean manufacturing environment for thin film or other solar cell production, we studied the hydrogen etching of silicon nitride (Si3N4) films on flat crystalline silicon (c-Silicon) substrates. With an arrangement primarily constructed for hot wire CVD (HWCVD) deposition of thin silicon films also cleaning processes with atomic hydrogen were studied with a simplified three wire assembly. The three filaments could be biased independently by different potential. A variation of hydrogen pressure and flow was performed to find out conditions of high etching rates for the Si3N4 layers. The etching rate was simply determined by measuring the time for total removal of the film, since this could be easily detected by the change of the anti-reflection property. Etching rates of 0.1 nm/s have been obtained under 15 Pa and a flow of 50 sccm. An intensive study was carried out of the direct current (DC) plasma hot wire CVD conditions. |
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Keywords: | Hydrogen etching Si3N4 dry etching Plasma assisted HWCVD Plasma current voltage characteristics |
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