The electrical and mechanical properties of the plasma polymerized low dielectric constant SiCOH films were investigated. The SiCOH films were produced with tetrakis(trimethylsilyloxy)silane and cyclohexane as precursors by using a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. When the deposition plasma powers were changed from 10 to 50 W, the relative dielectric constant of the SiCOH film increased from 2.09 to 2.76 and their hardness and elastic modulus were changed from 1.6 to 5.6 GPa and from 16 to 44 GPa, respectively. After thermal annealing at 500 o C, the annealed SiCOH films showed relative dielectric constants of 1.80-2.97, a hardness of 0.45-0.6 GPa and an elastic modulus of 6-7 GPa. And then, the chemical structures of asdeposited and annealed SiCOH films were analyzed by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.
Ultra low-k dielectric SiCOH films were deposited with decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (DMCPSO, C10H30O5Si5) and cyclohexane (C6H12) precursors by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at the deposition temperature between 25 and 200 degrees C and their chemical composition and deposition kinetics were investigated in this work. Low dielectric constants of 1.9-2.4 were obtained due to intrinsic nanoscale pores originating from the relatively large ring structure of DMCPSO and to the relatively large fraction of carbon contents in cyclohexane. Three different deposition regions were identified in the temperature range. Deposition rates increased with temperature below 40 degrees C and decreased as temperature increased to 75 degrees C with apparent activation energies of 56 kJ/mol x K at < 40 degrees C, -26 kJ/mol x K at 40-100 degrees C, respectively. In the temperature region of 40-100 degrees C hydrocarbon deposition and decomposition process compete each other and decomposition becomes dominant, which results in apparent negative activation energy. Deposition rates remain relatively unaffected with further increases of temperature above 100 degrees C. FTIR analysis and deposition kinetic analysis showed that hydrocarbon deposition is the major factor determining chemical composition and deposition rate. The hydrocarbon deposition dominates especially at lower temperatures below 40 degrees C and Si-O fraction increases above 40 degrees C. We believe that dielectric constants of low-k films can be controlled by manipulating the fraction of deposited hydrocarbon through temperature control.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.