XANES and XES Studies of Luminescent Silicon Carbonitride Thin Films

We investigated the photoluminescence (PL) and electronic properties of both undoped and doped silicon carbonitride (SiCN) thin films, fabricated using electron cyclotron resonance plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (ECR PECVD). The PL intensity of SiCN films is highly dependent on the annealing temperature and doping condition with rare-earth metals. Notably, Ce+3- and Tb+3-related luminescence were observed from doped samples after being annealed in nitrogen ambient at 1200°C for one hour. The electronic characteristics of these doped and un-doped films were analyzed using soft X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) measurements, showing significant structural re-ordering occurs as the annealing temperatures were increased.