Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2011
The scaling behavior of the roughness evolution of silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) films with different mass densities (deposited from SiH4-N2-H2 and SiH4-NH3 based plasmas) has been investigated by atomic force microscopy and real time spectroscopic ellipsometry. The observed roughness exponent a is similar for both films, whereas the growth exponent b is a factor of two smaller for the higher density films. The relation between the lower value of b and the higher mass density is discussed.