Non-stoichiometric amorphous silicon carbide (a-SixCy) thin films with high carbon content were synthesized on (100) silicon substrates in a PECVD system using SiH4 and CH4 as precursor gases. SiH4/CH4 flow ratio was adjusted by varying the SiH4 flow rate and maintaining constant the CH4 flow rate. RBS measurements show that the increase of the SiH4 flow rate promotes a decrease of the carbon content in the film. To study the effect of carbon concentration on morphological and structural properties of the a-SixCy films the following techniques were used: Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Raman Spectroscopy and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR). The etching process of these films was performed by reactive ion etching (RIE) using SF6 as the reactive fluorinated gas and O2 as an additive. In order to investigate the influence of O2 concentration on etch rate of the films, a mass spectrometry system was connected to the RIE reactor.
