Cyclic low temperature film growth processes

A nitridation apparatus comprising:

• a plasma processing chamber;
• a substrate holder disposed in the plasma processing chamber and configured to support a silicon substrate maintained at a temperature less than about 400° C.;
• a plasma source coupled to the plasma processing chamber and configured to bombard the silicon substrate with ions and photons from a plasma generated in the plasma processing chamber to remove hydrogen from an unreactive region of the silicon substrate and convert the unreactive region to a reactive region;
• and
• one or more gas inlets fluidically coupled to the plasma processing chamber and configured to nitridate the reactive region without generating plasma using a hydronitrogen gas by converting the reactive region to a nitride region comprising a subsequent unreactive region.

A film growth apparatus comprising:

• a processing chamber;
• a substrate holder disposed in the processing chamber and configured to support a substrate maintained at a temperature less than about 400° C., the substrate comprising a first material and a hydrogenated surface;
• an energy source coupled to the processing chamber and configured to generate an energy flux incident on the hydrogenated surface to treat the hydrogenated surface and convert the hydrogenated surface to a reactive surface by removing hydrogen from the hydrogenated surface;
• and
• one or more gas inlets fluidically coupled to the processing chamber and configured to expose the reactive surface to a hydrogen-based gas comprising a second material without generating a plasma to convert the reactive surface into a film comprising a subsequent hydrogenated surface and a compound comprising the first material and the second material.