Preparation and optical properties of SiCN thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering

As a kind of wide band gap semiconductor, silicon carbonitride (SiCN) becomes a hot material to research because of its unique electrical, chemical, thermodynamic and mechanical properties. In this paper, SiCN thin films were fabricated by reactive magnetron sputtering method using argon, nitrogen gases, Si target and C target. The study reveals that SiCN thin film composed of Si, C, N and O elements, and the thicknesses of SiCN thin films are increased from 99 to 459 nm with the targets power increasing. The optical measurement indicate that each of the as-prepared films with optical transmittances over 80% in visible regions. Meanwhile, the optical band gaps vary from 3.64 to 3.98 eV. Photoluminescence analysis reveals that the emission peaks are related to the quantum confinement effect of β-SiC nanocrystalline. The results are expected to provide information for further research and have important applications in advanced coating materials, microelectronic and optoelectronic devices.