AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Thursday Sessions
       Session EM-ThP

Paper EM-ThP47
Cyclic Chemical Vapor Deposition of TiAlO Ultra-Thin Films

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 5:30 pm, Room 3rd Floor Lobby

Session: Electronic Materials and Processing Poster Session
Presenter: X. Song, University of Illinois at Chicago
Authors: X. Song, University of Illinois at Chicago
C.G. Takoudis, University of Illinois at Chicago
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Cyclic-chemical vapor deposited TiAlO films, a few nanometers-thick, were prepared on H-passivated Si substrates using trimethyl Aluminum (TMA), tetrakis(diethylamino)titanium (TDEAT) and O@sub 2@. The depositions were carried out in a low pressure chemical vapor deposition chamber. The reaction pressure was on the order of 1 Torr and the reaction temperature was 300°C. The film thickness was probed using spectroellipsometry. The surface roughness of both as-deposited and annealed films were measured with atomic force microscopy (AFM). Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) was utilized for the composition analysis. The atomic compositions and interfacial reactions were probed using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The morphology of the films was analyzed using x-ray diffraction (XRD). Our studies show that the properties of TiO@sub 2@ are improved even with the addition of a few percent of Al@sub 2@O@sub 3@. XRD analyses indicate that as-deposited TiAlO films have amorphous structure. Upon annealing the as-deposited film in Ar at 500°C for 5 min, the film still maintains amorphous character, while TiO@sub 2@ crystallizes at these conditions. The surface of TiAlO films is found to be smoother than that of TiO@sub 2@. Sample annealing increases the roughness of the TiAlO films but the film roughness is still much lower than that of as-deposited TiO@sub 2@ films. There is no detectable formation of interfacial silicon oxide in as-deposited TiAlO films, based on XPS analyses. The thermal stability of TiAlO is also studied at different Ti contents. The carbon absence in the RBS analyses indicates that carbon (detected by XPS) is contamination on the sample surface most likely from the ambient. Electrical characterization of the TiAlO films will also be discussed.