Abstract: This paper reports an experimental procedure to analyze the properties of SiCN films.Hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride films (a-SiNx∶H) were implanted with 30keV C+ with a doping dose of 2e17cm-2 at room temperature.The composition,structure,and bonding structure of SiCN films treated by thermal annealing for 2h at 800℃ were analyzed with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS),Auger electron spectroscopy (AES),and Raman spectroscopy.SiCN films that exhibit complicated bond structures with carbon content up to 45%～50% can be determined by AES.In addition,the C concentration varies with the depth and shows two distributions.Furthermore,a typical XPS spectrum showing the C-Si,CN,and Si-N bonds demonstrates that the films after 800℃ thermal annealing for 2h are composed of two structures at different depths,one is SiC and SiNx,and the other is SiCxNy.In summary,the existence of the ternary SiCN can be observed with reasonable silicon content at appropriate annealing temperatures.These experimental results may provide information about the possibility and conditions of growing SiCN films,and they may get important application in future engineering practices.

Key words: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, C+ implantation, thermal annealing, SiCN