Fast deposition of amorphous carbon and silicon layers

A new plasma deposition technique is described. In this method a high density and strongly flowing argon plasma is admixed with monomers such as CH/sub 4/, C/sub 2/H/sub 2/, SiH/sub 4/, etc. Through effective charge transfer and dissociative recombination the ion charge is transferred to the fully dissociated monomer fragments. As the to be deposited particles as C and Si have low ionization potentials they are preferably recharged. The method results in high deposition rates of a-C:H (up to 100 nm/s) and a-Si:H layers (30 nm/s). Properties of the layers are reviewed and a tentative model for plasma description is discusse