Computational study on silicon oxide plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process using tetraethoxysilane/oxygen/argon/ helium

Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of silicon oxide (SiO2) using tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) was investigated theoretically by developing an unprecedented plasma chemistry model in TEOS/O2/Ar/He gas mixture. In the gas phase reactions, a TEOS molecule is decomposed by the electron impact reaction and/or chemically oxidative reaction, forming intermediate TEOS fragments, i.e., silicon complexes. In this study, we assume that SiO is the main precursor that contributes to SiO2 film growth under a particular process or simulation condition. The surface reaction was also investigated using quantum mechanical simulations with density functional theory. Based on the gas and surface reaction models, we constructed a computational plasma model for SiO2 film deposition in a PECVD process. The simulation results using CHEMKIN pro and CFD-ACE + have shown that the neutral atomic O and SiO as well as the charged O2+ are the dominant species to obtain a high deposition rate and uniformity. The spatial distributions of various species in the TEOS/O2/Ar/He gas mixture plasma were shown in the study. The uniformity of deposited film due to the change in the plasma bulk property was also discussed.