Chemical vapor deposition of metal oxide, titanium nitride and niobium nitride thin films

Amorphous aluminum oxide films have been deposited by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) from a non pyrophoric triethyldialuminum tri-sec-butoxide liquid precursor. Deposition rates up to 0.2 μm/min were observed. The films were mixture of AlO(OH) and Al₂O₃. Hydrogen was found in the films. The hydrogen content of the film was significantly reduced by annealing the films at the deposition temperature in oxygen gas at one atmospheric pressure. The films were electrically insulating. The dielectric constant of the films was from 5.5 to 8.1. The film refractive index! was 1.6. Within wavelength range from 500 nm to 1000 nm, absorption of the film was not detectable. The average absorption from 400 nm to 500 nm was below 1%. Films survived in 20% HCl solution after 24 hours etching.; Twenty metal oxide films and four multi-component oxide films were deposited by CVD from beta-diketonate precursors. Most of the films were carbon free. For most of carbon containing films, the carbon impurity could be removed by annealing films in oxygen at the deposition temperature.; The compositions at different places on a single multi-component film were sometimes different. The usual constancy of atomic area density of different components in co-deposition experiments showed that the reactions of different precursors in their mixture were mostly independent. However, a small change of reaction rates of some of the precursors was observed on mixing with other precursors. Dramatic change of composition due to the mixing of different precursors was observed for a few reactions.; Titanium nitride thin films were deposited on Si and patterned wafers by CVD. The conformality of CVD titanium nitride films was significantly improved by adding trimethylamine to the deposition process. At 320°C, the conformality of films made on patterned wafers was improved from 70% to nearly 100%. The resistivity and composition of the films were not changed by adding trimethylamine.; CVD niobium nitride films have been studied as a novel diffusion barrier material. Compared to a titanium nitride diffusion barrier, a niobium nitride diffusion barrier had higher step coverage and denser microstructure. Carbon was not found in the films. However, the niobium nitride films had higher resistivity due to the high oxygen impurity in the films.