Effect of high-energy electron-beam irradiation on the optical properties of ion-beam-sputtered silicon oxynitride thin films.

Silicon oxynitride thin films are prepared by ion-beam sputtering, and the optical properties and surface chemical composition are studied by spectrophotometric and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. It is seen that the films sputtered by use of nitrogen alone as the sputtering species from a silicon nitride target are completely transparent (k < 0.005) and have a refractive-index dispersion from 1.