Impact of thermal annealing on interfacial layer and electrical properties of a-SiN

We report the impact of post-deposition thermal annealing (in nitrogen ambient) on the evolution of an interfacial layer between a hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx : H) thin film and a Si(100) substrate and its correlation with electrical properties. X-ray reflectivity measurements reveal that the SiNx films under different post annealing temperatures demonstrate variation in the density, thickness and roughness. Also it is found that the interface state density (Dit) is directly related to the interfacial layer density of the film rather than to the surface and interface roughness