Thin film wide bandgap semiconductors: Preparation, doping and characterization of structural and optoelectronic properties

Amorphous silicon-carbon alloy was first prepared by glow-discharge decomposition of $\rm C\sb2 H\sb4$-SiH$\sb4$ mixture by Anderson and Spear. Since doping of glow-discharge a-SiC:H films was first reported, several kinds of methods for doping amorphous semiconductors have been developed. These doping techniques are based on the use of toxic materials such as phosphine and diborane for n- and p-type materials. Therefore there has been a demand for another doping technique to avoid the use of these materials. In this study, it is attempted to dope amorphous silicon carbide films with aluminum by alternate cosputtering of SiC and Al-doped SiC. Structural and opt-electronic characteristics of Al-doped amorphous SiC films were studied. Recently, amorphous hydrogenated silicon carbonitride (a-SiCN:H) film has attracted a great deal of attentions as a candidate material for tribological applications. SiC-SiN does not exist naturally. Therefore studies on fundamental properties of SiCN is needed in order to explore methods to synthesize and characterize such material. In this study, amorphous SiC-SiN films were prepared by rf reactive sputtering and their properties were studied as a function of deposition parameters. Boron nitride is a wide bandgap semiconductor and it has many useful properties. Thin film BN can be deposited by several methods including rf sputtering. Although many authors have reported on various properties of sputtered BN films, these results vary so widely. Therefore, the effect of deposition parameters on the structure and properties of rf sputtered boron nitride films need to be further studied systematically. In this work, structure and properties of reactively sputtered BN films were studied as a function of deposition parameters. A review on the characterization of thin film boron nitride is written as well. Titanium nitride (TiN) has excellent properties which are very similar to those of gold, i.e. golden yellow color, chemical inertness, high electrical conductivity, etc. It is first attempted to partially replace gold coating with TiN by adopting multilayered structure. Multilayered TiN-Au structure with less amount of gold showed overall characteristics comparable to those of pure gold coatings while its mechanical properties are even superior to that of electroplated gold coating