Influence of ion bombardment on structural and electrical properties of SiO2 thin films deposited from 02/HMDSO inductively coupled plasmas under continuous wave and pulsed modes

Low pressure Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition is commonly used to deposit insulators on temperature sensitive substrates. In these processes, the ion bombardment experienced by films during its growth is known to have benefits but also some disadvantages on material properties. In the present paper, we investigate the influence of this bombardment on the structure and the electrical properties of SiO2-like film deposited from oxygen/hexamethyldisiloxane radiofrequency plasma in continuous and pulsed modes. First, we studied the ion kinetics thanks to time-resolved measurements by Langmuir probe. After, we showed the ion bombardment in such plasma controls the OH bond content in deposited films. Finally, we highlight the impressive reduction of fixed charge and interface state densities in films obtained in pulsed mode due to a lower ion bombardment.