Chemical character of BCxNy layers grown by CVD with trimethylamine borane

Layers of BCxNy were produced in a chemical vapour deposition (CVD) process using trimethylamine borane with He, N-2, and NH3, respectively, as precursor. These layers deposited on Si (100) wafers were characterized chemically by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and synchrotron radiation-based total reflection X-ray fluorescence analysis combined with near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (TXRF-NEXAFS). As a result, the composition of the material produced without NH3 is a B-C bonds containing compound with an atomic relation 1 : 1. Adding NH3 with a partial pressure of up to about 1.3 Pa the product could be identified as B2C2N. Increasing the partial pressure of NH3 to 1.7 and 2.1 Pa the product was enriched in nitrogen yielding a compound characterized as h-BCN. In all cases an impurity of oxygen was observed. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.