Atomic layer deposition physics at the nucleation stage
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Three dimensional complex chip architectures are gaining more widespread usage as computing devices continue to shrink. These complex architectures are necessary in order to continue scaling down the size of each individual transistor and make them more efficient. In manufacturing such complex architectures, traditional material deposition methods such as physical or chemical vapor deposition are no longer as effective as they are somewhat directional. A method that is gaining widespread use is atomic layer deposition (ALD). ALD allows multiple advantages such as exquisite thickness control of deposited films, three dimensional film conformality and control over composition. However, certain useful films grown via ALD have an initial growth nucleation stage which is not well understood. This limitation prevents us from growing the thinnest possible pinhole-free films. Gaining an understanding of the nucleation stage would allow us to continue scaling our devices down further and even perform selective area deposition. In order to shed some light on the nucleation stage, in this dissertation, we have utilized the unique capability of a custom built combined scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and ALD system to observe topographically the nucleation stage of ALD in-situ. We used existing wet etch techniques to create atomically flat hydrogen terminated silicon, and created a method for using remote plasma to create atomically flat suboxide terminated silicon, both for use as suitable flat substrates for STM observation of ALD nucleation. With these atomically flat substrates available to us, we observed, using a variety of characterization techniques, the nucleation stage of two ALD systems: ALD ZnO and ALD Ru. Though we selected two specific systems to study, this technique could be further used on any other desired chemistries for study. We further demonstrate the ability of this STM-ALD tool to perform both bottom up and top down lithography, by activating sites for ALD, or decomposing ALD precursors at specific locations, or by etching away deposited layers using the STM tip.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Thian, Ming Rue Dickson |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Applied Physics. |
| Primary advisor | Prinz, F. B |
| Primary advisor | Suzuki, Yuri, (Applied physicist) |
| Thesis advisor | Prinz, F. B |
| Thesis advisor | Suzuki, Yuri, (Applied physicist) |
| Thesis advisor | Bent, Stacey |
| Advisor | Bent, Stacey |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Ming Rue Dickson Thian. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Applied Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Ming Rue Dickson Thian
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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