Microscopic Mechanisms for Reduced Static Dielectric Constants in Si-O-F Alloy Films

Abstract

AbstractThere is considerable interest in insulators with static dielectric constants lower than SiO2; an alloy system attracting recent attention is Si-O-F. Alloying of F atoms into plasma-deposited SiO2 films leads to major changes in the SiO2 bond-stretching and -bending infrared bands accounting for a significant fraction of the reduction in the dielectric constant. These changes are explained by F induced modifications of force constants and effective charges of the neighboring Si-O-Si groups.