X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON-SPECTROSCOPY INVESTIGATION ON THE CHEMICAL-STRUCTURE OF AMORPHOUS-SILICON NITRIDE (a-SINX)

Amorphous silicon nitride a-SiNx (0<x<1.7) thin films, prepared by DIBS were investigated by means of high-energy resolution XPS using an X-ray monochromatized radiation. The variation of the position, width and line shape of the Si 2p photoemission peak, as a function of the alloy composition, was explained in terms of an overlapping of five chemical shifted unresolved components corresponding to the five tettrahedral silicon bonding configurations SiS4-nNn (n=0,1, ...4).