The demand for transistors and memory devices with smaller feature sizes and increasingly complex architectures furthers the need for advanced thin film patterning techniques. A prepatterned, sacrificial layer can be used as a template for bottomup fill of new materials which would otherwise be difficult to pattern using traditional top-down lithographic methods. This work investigates initial growth of TiN, TiO 2 , and HfO 2 thin films during thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD) onto a high density, amorphous carbon (aC) sacrificial layer. ALD of TiN by TiCl 4 / NH 3 at 390 °C, TiO 2 by Ti(OCH 3 ) 4 /H 2 O at 250 °C, and HfO 2 by HfCl 4 /H 2 O at 300 °C on as-deposited aC films resulted in uninhibited, continuous thin film growth. We find that carbon surface reduction and passivation using a H 2 plasma resulted in delayed film coalescence for TiN, TiO 2 , and HfO 2 on the aC. After 200 TiN cycles on H 2 plasma-treated aC, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry shows Ti levels below the detection limit (8 × 10 13 at/cm 2 ), whereas SiO 2 or Si 3 N 4 substrates show TiN growth of ∼6 nm, corresponding to a selectivity of ∼200:1. Exposing plasma-treated aC to H 2 O induces nucleation for TiN ALD, consistent with favorable nucleation on hydroxyl sites. Therefore, the H 2 O co-reagent in TiO 2 and HfO 2 ALD contributes to loss of selectivity compared to TiN ALD using NH 3 . We confirm scaling of selectivity to sub-50 nm patterns using 45 nm aC/Si 3 N 4 line/space patterns, where 3.5 nm TiO 2 and 5.8 nm TiN films are deposited on Si 3 N 4 with minimal particle formation on aC, with selectivity loss primarily on feature corners and edges. We conclude that improved scaling of selectivity to nanometer scale patterns can be achieved by optimizing surface loading and extent of plasma exposure, and by further understanding shape effects in nanoscale surface plasma modification.

Fiber@ALD@MOF structures fabricated via ALD and layer-by-layer MOF synthesis show good conformality and high adsorption capacity.

The wave-particle duality of light is a controversial topic in modern physics. In this context, this work highlights the ability of the wave-nature of light on its own to account for the conservation of energy in light-matter interaction. Two simple fundamental properties of light as wave are involved: its period and its power P. The power P depends only on the amplitude of the wave's electric and magnetic fields (Poynting's vector), and can easily be measured with a power sensor for visible and infrared lasers. The advantage of such a wave-based approach is that it unveils unexpected effects of light's power P capable of explaining numerous results published in current scientific literature, of correlating phenomena otherwise considered as disjointed, and of making predictions on ways to employ the electromagnetic (EM) waves which so far are unexplored. In this framework, this work focuses on determining the magnitude of the time interval that, coupled with light's power P, establishes the energy conserved in the exchange of energy between light and matter. To reach this goal, capacitors were excited with visible and IR lasers at variable average power P. As the result of combining experimental measurements and simulations based on the law of conservation of energy, it was found that the product of the period of the light by its power P fixes the magnitude of the energy conserved in light's interaction with the capacitors. This finding highlights that the energy exchanged is defined in the time interval equal to the period of the light's wave. The validity of the finding is shown to hold in light's interaction with matter in general, e.g.