Thickness-dependent stress in plasma-deposited silicon dioxide films

Thick silicon dioxide (SiO2) films up to 5 μm have been deposited by helicon activated reactive evaporation (plasma assisted deposition with electron beam evaporation source) as both bilayer and trilayer structures, and the film stress was investigated in the context of optical waveguide fabrication. A model for stress in the SiO2-Si bilayer as a function of film thickness is formulated and interpreted in terms of Volmer-Weber film growth mechanisms. We find that island coalescence begins at a film thickness of less than 165 nm and continues until about 700 nm. Above approximately 1 μm thickness, the film continues growth as a continuous film. The stress in a deposited SiO2 film in an SiO2-Si-SiO2 trilayer structure was investigated by adapting the established Stoney's equation for a trilayer system, and comparing it with a thermally grown SiO2 trilayer. A constant value of stress is obtained for the deposited SiO2 film for film thickness >1 μm which was consistently less than both measured and previously reported values of stress in thermally grown SiO2