Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The thermally-induced decay of light-induced, paramagnetic neutral silicon dan-gling bonds(K centers ) in hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride thin films is monitored using electron spin resonance. The nitride films are of gate-quality and nitrogen-rich and are deposited at two different temperatures (250 and 400 °C). The kinetics for isothermal annealing of the light-induced K° states is dependent upon sample deposition temperature and is observed to follow a stretched exponential dependence, exp {— (t/τ)β}, upon annealing time (t). The stretched exponential factor, β, shows a non-linear dependence upon annealing temperature including temperature independent regimes. Thermal annealing is thermally activated with an apparent activation energy of ∼ 0.4 eV and is independent of deposition temperature. These results indicate that annealing is a dispersive process which involves hopping and multiple trapping or trap controlled hopping in the thermal annealing of light induced K centers in amorphous SiN1.6:H.