AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Thin Film Friday Sessions
       Session TF+EM-FrM

Paper TF+EM-FrM10
In Situ Monitoring of Hafnium Oxide Atomic Layer Deposition

Friday, November 17, 2006, 11:00 am, Room 2022

Session: In-Situ/Ex-Situ & Real-Time Monitoring and Characterization
Presenter: J.E. Maslar, NIST
Authors: J.E. Maslar, NIST
W.S. Hurst, NIST
D.R. Burgess, NIST
W.A. Kimes, NIST
N.V. Nguyen, NIST
Correspondent: Click to Email
In situ monitoring of atomic layer deposition processes has the potential to yield insights that will enable efficiencies in film growth, in the development of deposition recipes, and in the design and qualification of reactors. However, demonstrations of in situ monitoring of actual atomic layer deposition processes are limited. In this work, the species present in the gas phase during atomic layer deposition of hafnium oxide were investigated in an attempt to gain insight into the chemistry of this system and evaluate potential in situ gas phase optical monitors. Hafnium oxide was deposited on a silicon substrate using tetrakis(ethylmethylamino) hafnium and water as the hafnium and oxygen sources, respectively. In situ Raman and infrared absorption spectroscopy measurements were performed in a research-grade, horizontal-flow reactor under a range of deposition conditions. Density functional theory quantum calculations of vibrational frequencies of expected species were used to facilitate identification of observed spectral features. Gas phase measurements performed at the wafer surface were compared to measurements performed at the chamber exhaust to investigate the utility of exhaust-based optical measurements for deposition monitoring. Results of in situ gas-phase measurements were compared with results of ex situ hafnium oxide film characterization, vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopic ellipsometry and infrared absorption spectroscopy, in an effort to correlate observed gas phase species with deposited film properties.