Growth of SiC and SiCxNy films by pulsed laser ablation of SiC in Ar and N2 environments

Amorphous SiC and SiCxNy films have been deposited by pulsed laser deposition on single crystal silicon substrates by KrF (248 nm) excimer laser ablation of a SiC sintered target in a vacuum system at room temperature using nonreactive, Ar, and reactive, N2, background gases at different pressures. The pressure range in the growth chamber was from 4×10−8 Torr to 80 mTorr. The optical properties and stoichiometry of films were varied by the introduction of a background gas. The resulting films are inspected by spectroellipsometry in the photon-energy range of 1.5