| AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology Division | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session PS+EM-WeA |
| Session: | Low-K Materials & Integration |
| Presenter: | He Ren, University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Authors: | H. Ren, University of Wisconsin-Madison M.T. Nichols, University of Wisconsin-Madison G. Jiang, Novellus Systems G.A. Antonelli, Novellus Systems Y. Nishi, Stanford University J.L. Shohet, University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Defect concentrations in low-k organosilicate glass [SiCOH] films deposited on high-resistivity silicon were measured with electron-spin resonance. Both plasma exposure and ultraviolet exposure were used. During argon electron-cyclotron resonance plasma exposure, ion and photon bombardment increased the measured defect concentrations. Ultraviolet lamp exposure was also shown to increase the defect concentrations. SiCOH samples with several dielectric constants were examined showing that as the value of the dielectric constant was lowered, the defect concentrations were shown to increase significantly.[i] In addition, the nature of the defects in SiCOH was investigated using air and nitrogen plasma exposure. The defects were found to be silicon dangling bonds. Air-plasma exposure increases the defect concentrations by breaking silicon-hydrogen bonds, measured by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Nitrogen-plasma exposure as well as free-radical exposure have only a small influence on the bond breaking. It was also shown that UV curing improves the chemical-damage resistance of the dielectric.
Work Supported by the Semiconductor Research Corporation under contract 2008-KJ-1781 and the National Science Foundation under Grant CBET-1066231.[i] H. Ren, M. T. Nichols, G. Jiang, G. A. Antonelli, Y. Nishi, and J.L. Shohet, Applied Physics Letters 98, 102903 (2011).