Copyright © (2004) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics
The plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) is a promising technique to produce high quality metal and nitride thin films at low growth temperature. In this study, very thin low resistivity cubic TaN Cu diffusion barrier (< 10 nm) were deposited by PE-ALD from TaCl5 and hydrogen and nitrogen plasma. The physical properties of TaN thin films including microstructure, conformality, roughness, and thermal stability were investigated by various analysis techniques including medium energy ion scattering, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Especially, the Cu diffusion barrier properties of PE-ALD TaN thin films were studied by in situ analysis technique including synchrotron X-ray diffraction, optical scattering, and sheet resistance measurements during thermal annealing of the test structures. The failure temperatures of PE-ALD TaN films were comparable to those of PVD counterpart. The film structures and diffusion barrier failure mechanisms are discussed.
By: H. Kim, C. Lavoie, M. Copel, V. Narayanan, S. M. Rossnagel
Published in: Journal of Applied Physics, volume 95, (no 10), pages 5848-55 in 2004
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