Unraveling the complex chemistry using dimethylsilane as a precursor gas in hot wire chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

The gas-phase reaction chemistry when using dimethylsilane (DMS) as a source gas in a hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process has been studied in this work. The complex chemistry is unraveled by using a soft 10.5 eV single photon ionization technique coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry in combination with the isotope labelling and chemical trapping methods. It has been demonstrated that both free-radical reactions and those involving silylene/silene intermediates are important. The reaction chemistry is characterized by the formation of 1,1,2,2-tetramethyldisilane (TMDS) from dimethylsilylene insertion into the Si–H bond of DMS, trimethylsilane (TriMS) from free-radical recombination, and 1,3-dimethyl-1,3-disilacyclobutane (DMDSCB) from the self dimerization of either dimethylsilylene or 1-methylsilene. At low filament temperatures and short reaction time, silylene chemistry dominates. The free-radical reactions become more important with increasing temperature and time. The same three products have been detected when using tantalum and tungsten filaments, indicating that changing the filament material from Ta to W does not affect much the gas-phase reaction chemistry when using DMS as a source gas in a hot-wire CVD reactor.