The Contact Characteristics of SiCN Films for Opto-Electrical Devices Applications WEN-RONG CHANG, 1 YEAN-KUEN FANG, 1,2 SHYH-FANN TING, 1 SHIH-FANG CHEN, 1 CHUN-YU LIN, 1 SHENG-BENG HWANG, 1 and CHENG-NAN CHANG 1 1.—VLSI Technology Laboratory, Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineer- ing, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 70100, Republic of China. 2.—E-mail: ykfang@eembox.ee.ncku.edu.tw This paper reports the study of ohmic and Schottky contacts to rapid-thermal chemical vapor deposition (RTCVD) deposited SiCN films in detail. Two proto- typical blue-violet light-emitting devices with SiCN material based on the study have been developed. Both photoluminescence (PL) measurement and electroluminescence (EL) photography are used to evaluate the devices’ optical performances. The experimental results show the potential of SiCN for advanced blue and ultraviolet (UV) optoelectronic applications. Key words: Silicon carbon nitride, electroluminescence, light emitting, ultraviolet Journal of ELECTRONIC MATERIALS, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2004 Regular Issue Paper 181 (Received March 12, 2003; accepted November 17, 2003) INTRODUCTION Silicon carbon nitride (SiCN) is an important semiconductor for its wide interesting physical char- acteristics, such as hardness, oxidation resistance, and corrosion resistance. These characteristics are useful in coating technique and microelectronics devices. 2 In past, the studies of SiCN films were focused on the preparation and characterization of the film. 1–5 Recently, more attention has been paid on the possible applications of SiCN for advanced blue or ultraviolet (UV) optoelectronic devices based on its large direct bandgap of around 3.8 eV. 6 In this paper, we present our studies on the ohmic and Schottky contacts of SiCN and the appli- cations of the contacts for electroluminescence (EL) devices, i.e., n-SiCN/p-Si heterojunction diode (HJD) and indium-zinc-oxide (IZO)/n-SiCN Schot- tky diode. The SiCN films were prepared on a crys- tal silicon substrate by a rapid-thermal chemical vapor deposition (RTCVD) system. The current- voltage (I-V) measurements, EL photographs, and photoluminescence (PL) spectrum have been used to examine the performances of the two light-emitting devices. The results indicate that the SiCN pos- sesses the potential for advanced blue-violet EL device applications. FILM AND DEVICE FABRICATION The n-type SiCN films were grown on both p-type and n-type (100) direction and 4–10 Ω·cm resistivity silicon wafers with the RTCVD system. 7,8 After cleaning, the substrate was immediately loaded into the reaction tube, and the system was pumped down to about 10 -7 torr. During growth, the substrate was held at 900°C for 10 min to remove native oxide lay- ers on the surfaces first. Next, a gas mixture consist- ing of SiCH 6 , NH 3 , SiH 4 , and PH 3 with flow rate of 12 sccm, 16 sccm, 12 sccm, and 12 sccm, respectively, and diluted in hydrogen was introduced. Addition- ally, the reactor operating pressure was controlled at 2 torr. Then, the temperature was raised up to 1,000°C and kept for 10 min to deposit the n-SiCN film. The structure and the surface morphology of the as-deposited n-SiCN layer were examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scan- ning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. Finally, various metals of Al, Au, and Ni were de- posited by e-gun evaporation through a shadow mask on the n-SiCN film and annealed at 700°C for 30 sec to form contacts. The IZO contacts were deposited by sputtering at 25°C. All the metals have the same thickness of 4,000 Å and an area of 0.6 mm 2 . The I-V characteristics of the contacts were measured with an HP-4156 (USA) semiconductor parameter ana- lyzer. Moreover, two prototypes of EL devices with