This work provides evidence that plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition (ALD) of SiO2, a widely applied process and a cornerstone in self-aligned multiple patterning, is strongly influenced by ions even under mild plasma conditions with low-energy ions. In two complementary experimental approaches, plasma ALD of SiO2 is investigated with and without
DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement:
Miniaturization in integrated circuits requires that the Cu diffusion barriers located in interconnects between the Cu metal line and the dielectric material should scale down. Replacing the conventional TaN with a 2D transition metal dichalcogenide barrier potentially offers the opportunity to scale to 1–2 nm thick barriers. In this article, it is demonstrated that MoS2 synthesized by atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be employed as a Cu diffusion barrier. ALD offers a controlled growth process at back‐end‐of‐line (BEOL) compatible temperatures. MoS2 films of different thicknesses (i.e., 2.2, 4.3, and 6.5 nm) are tested by time‐dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) measurements, demonstrating that ALD‐grown MoS2 can enhance dielectric lifetime by a factor up to 17 at an electric field of 7 MV cm−1. Extrapolation to lower E‐fields shows that the MoS2 barriers prepared by ALD have at least an order of magnitude higher median‐time‐to‐failure during device operation at 0.5 MV cm−1 compared with MoS2 barriers prepared by other methods. By scaling the thickness further down in future work, the ALD MoS2 films can be applied as ultrathin Cu diffusion barriers.
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.