Properties of SiOxNy thin film deposited by low temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using TEOS–NH3–O2–N2 gas mixtures

In this study, a SiOxNy thin film was deposited on plastic substrates using tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS)/O2/N2/NH3 gas mixtures at a low temperature using the plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) driven by an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) with a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) for biasing. Also, the effects of TEOS, N2, and NH3 gas flow rates on the properties of the deposited film were investigated. A transparent and impurity free SiOxNy film having 60 nm/min of deposition rate could be obtained at the gas mixture of 15 sccm TEOS in N2, 10 sccm O2, 75 sccm of N2, and 20 sccm of NH3 for 300 W of 13.56 MHz rf power and − 150 V of dc bias voltage. When a multilayer film composed of total nine layers (parylene (800 nm)/SiOxNy (60 nm)/parylene (280 nm)/SiOxNy (60 nm)/…) was deposited on 200 μm-thick polyethersulfone (PES) using the optimized SiOxNy, the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of 0.0235 g/(m2 day) could be obtained.