| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Thin Films Division | Monday Sessions |
| Session TF1-MoM |
| Session: | Precursors and Surface Reactions |
| Presenter: | Aswin Kondusamy, University of Texas at Dallas |
| Authors: | A.L.N. Kondusamy, University of Texas at Dallas A.T. Lucero, University of Texas at Dallas S. Hwang, University of Texas at Dallas X. Meng, University of Texas at Dallas H.S. Kim, University of Texas at Dallas D. Alvarez Jr., RASIRC J. Spiegelman, RASIRC J. Kim, University of Texas at Dallas |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Silicon nitride is an important material in the semiconductor industry for applications in 3D integration and self-aligned patterning. The conventional processes used to deposit silicon nitride involve either high temperature or plasma to generate reactive species. Though they can produce good quality films in terms of electrical properties, wet etch rate and uniformity 1, they do not satisfy the demands for modern applications namely low thermal budget (<400 °C) and conformality over high aspect ratio structures. Newly developed ultra-high purity hydrazine sources have been successfully used to deposit metal nitrides at low temperature.2 In this work, we studied the growth and properties of silicon nitride films deposited by low temperature Atomic Layer deposition (ALD) using Hexachlododisilane (HCDS) and Hydrazine.
Silicon nitride films were deposited in the temperature range 250-400 °C. The growth per cycle (GPC) gradually increased with hydrazine exposure and saturation behavior was observed. GPC of 0.4-0.5 Å/cycle is observed at 400 °C with refractive index of 1.813. X-Ray Spectroscopy showed that films of low oxygen (<2%) and chlorine (<1%) impurity can be achieved. These results are similar to those for films deposited with HCDS and NH3 using Plasma-enhanced ALD at 360°C. Film density and wet etch rate results are compared for films deposited at different temperatures.
1. X. Meng, Y.-C. Byun, H. Kim, J. Lee, A. T. Lucero, L. Cheng, J. Kim, Materials 9 (12) 1007 (2016)
2. D. Alvarez, J. Spiegelman, R. Holmes, K. Andachi, M. Raynor, H. Shimizu, ECS Transactions, 77 (5) 219-225 (2017)