Microstructural modifications induced by rapid thermal annealing in plasma deposited SiO<inf>x</inf>N<inf>y</inf>H<inf>z</inf> films

A study was performed on the effect of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) processes on the structural properties of SiOxNyHz films. The samples were deposited by using electron cyclotron resonance plasma method, where O2, N2 and SiO2 were used as precursor gases. It was found that the degradation of structural order associated to H release prevailed over thermal relaxation for films containing both Si-H and N-H bonds, while thermal relaxation predominates in those films with only N-H bonds.