The silicon-rich SiNx films were fabricated on Si(100) substrate and quartz substrate at different substrate temperatures varying from room temperature to 400 ℃ by bipolar pulse ane RF magnetron co-sputtering deposition technique.After deposition,the films were annealed in a nitrogen atmosphere by rapid photo-thermal annealing at 1 050 ℃ for 3 minutes.This thermal step allows the formation of the silicon quantum dots.Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy,Raman spectroscopy,grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and photoluminescence spectroscopy were used to analyze the bonding configurations,microstructures and luminescence properties of the films.The experimental results showed that:silicon-rich Si-N bonds were found in Fourier transform infrared spectra,suggesting that the silicon-rich SiNx films were successfully prepared;when the substrate temperature was not lower than 200 ℃,the Raman spectra of the films showed the transverse optical mode of Si-Si vibration,while the significant diffraction peaks of Si(111) and Si(311) were shown in grazing incidence X-ray diffraction spectra,confirming the formation of silicon quantum dots;our work indicated that there was an optimal substrate temperature(300 ℃),which could significantly increase the amount and the crystalline volume fraction of silicon quantum dots;three visible photoluminescence bands can be obtained for both 300 ℃ sample and 400 ℃ sample,and in combination with Raman results,the emission peaks were reasonably explained by using the quantum confinement effect and radiative recombination defect state of Si nanocrystals;the average size of the silicon quantum dots is 3.5 and 3.4 nm for the 300 ℃ sample and 400 ℃ sample,respectively.These results are useful for optimizing the fabrication parameters of silicon quantum dots embedded in SiNx thin films and have valuable implications for silicon based photoelectric device applications.