Nitrogen dangling bonds in hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride thin films

Abstract

The photocreation mechanisms and properties of nitrogen dangling-bonds (N0-centers) in amorphous hydrogenated N-rich silicon nitride thin films are investigated. We find that the creation kinetics depend on the post-deposition anneals; it is illumination temperature independent, and can be well described by a stretched exponential illumination time dependence function. The photocreated N0-centers can be photobleached by sub-bandgap light. All these results suggest that the photocreation mechanism of the N0-centers simply involves a change of spin and charge state of pre-existing diamagnetic nitrogen charged sites created by the post-deposition thermal treatment.