Optimum discharge condition of DC bias electron cyclotron resonance plasma sputtering for high quality Si epitaxial growth

An electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma sputtering method, combined with DC substrate bias, has been developed to deposit single crystal thin films at the low substrate temperature of 400°C and a conventional base pressure of 5 × 10^-7 Torr. At the optimum discharge condition of deposition pressure of 2.2 m Torr and substrate bias of + 10 V, with both the ECR power and the rf power for sputtering of 500 W, crystallographically perfect single crystal deposition was found to be possible. These results have been interpreted as supplying a sufficient ion flux to adatoms while maintaining a sufficiently low ion energy to avoid substrate and film damage during deposition.