Charging and discharging in ion implanted dielectric films used for capacitive radio frequency microelectromechanical systems switch

In this work, metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) capacitor structure was used to investigate the dielectric charging and discharging in the capacitive radio frequency microelectromechanical switches. The insulator in MIS structure is silicon nitride films (SiN), which were deposited by either low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) or plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) processes. Phosphorus or boron ions were implanted into dielectric layer in order to introduce impurity energy levels into the band gap of SiN. The relaxation processes of the injected charges in SiN were changed due to the ion implantation, which led to the change in relaxation time of the trapped charges. In our experiments, the space charges were introduced by stressing the sample electrically with dc biasing. The effects of implantation process on charge accumulation and dissipation in the dielectric are studied by capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement qualitatively and quantitatively. The experimental results show that the charging and discharging behavior of the ion implanted silicon nitride films deposited by LPCVD is quite different from the one deposited by PECVD. The charge accumulation in the dielectric film can be reduced by ion implantation with proper dielectric deposition method. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3147862