Investigation of physical and electrical properties of a suboxide layer at Si/Si-hexafluoride interface.

The silicon suboxide SiOx (x < 2.0) offers promising industrial application possibilities ranging from electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, which are used widely in electrical vehicles and portable devices to sensing applications. Therefore, a low cost, environmental friendly and high performance silicon oxide materials are required for an appropriate operation of any electronic gadget. In this work, we report on the physical and electrical properties of a suboxide layer of up to 1 μm, which was grown on silicon during the formation of a dielectric layer, namely the ammonium silicon hexafluoride. It is a stable oxide exhibiting light emission from 400 to 1700 nm offering scalable and cost-effective large area processing capability. The measurement results reveal interesting properties, which are required to be understood clearly before proceeding with any suitable application. The results have been analyzed using state-of-the-art physical and electrical characterization techniques such as ellipsometry, AFM, SEM, FTIR, photoluminescence lifetime and resistive switching measurements to determine structural, optical and electrical properties. At 300 K the carrier lifetime measurements reveal the lifetime values ranging from about few tens of picosecond up to 4500 picoseconds. Scanning probe analysis indicate a surface roughness of about 30 Å. Resistive memory forming was observed also in these layers at relatively low power thresholds. We provide a comprehensive description of the physical and electrical properties in order to clarify the origin of the observed features. The wavelength dependent real and the imaginary dielectric functions provided useful insights on optical properties. A lookout is given for the possible applications of this special SiOx dielectric oxide layer.