ALD Applications Beyond Outside IC Technology - Existing and Emerging Possibilities

Abstract

Today, the main industrial application of ALD is manufacturing semiconductor devices, both memory devices and microprocessors. Industrial ALD is, however, searching for new success stories from novel areas. Examples of new applications outside the semiconductor industry include photovoltaics, diffusion barriers, wear resistant materials and optical coatings, all aiming to improve the competitiveness of existing products and create new opportunities for ALD. In this paper we shortly review the existing and emerging application areas where ALD has been recently utilised. We will also show some new results concerning ALD on glass and metal substrates in order to improve the substrate's cracking and wear resistance, respectively. Different industrial ALD tool concepts and process requirements for high throughput production are also discussed.

Density of Nanometrically Thin Amorphous Films Varies by Thickness

“…We believe that the reported effect is significant for both science and industry since different physical properties, such as dielectric properties and refractive index, are dependent on the density. ALD is a method, which is widely employed in various technological applications, ranging from the semiconductor industry, to optical coatings and even to wear-resistant materials . Our findings prove that the density is strongly dependent on size; thus, we expect that other physical properties would also be size-dependent.…”

Rational Design of Metalorganic Complexes for the Deposition of Solid Films: Growth of Metallic Copper with Amidinate Precursors

“…To address issues of conformality during solid film depositions in applications involving rough topographies at the nanometer scale, researchers have increasingly shifted their interest from physical (e.g., evaporation) to chemical methods. Atomic layer deposition (ALD), where the chemistry used for the deposition is split into two or more self-limiting and complementary steps to gain sub-monolayer control of the film growth, , has shown particular promise for this endeavor, − and has in fact been already incorporated in some manufacturing processes in the microelectronics industry. − One of the main challenges with such chemical deposition methods is the need to avoid the incorporation of impurities, byproducts of the decomposition of the chemicals used, into the growing films. − The choice of the chemical precursors used in ALD is therefore critical …”

Atomic layer deposition of Ti-Nb-O thin films onto electrospun fibers for fibrous and tubular catalyst support structures

“…Our target was to be prepared for scaling of the Ti-Nb-O processes for industrial size high surface area substrates, so the use of TiCl 4 as a precursor was evaluated since it has been also previously used successfully for industrialscale ALD processes. 30 It is known that evaporation temperatures of 130-140 C are sufficient to provide surface saturation during film growth with binary Nb 2 O 5 deposition rate of 0.38 Å /cycle. Since purging times were kept constant at 5 s, CVD type growth was observed when evaporation temperature was over 155 C indicating excess precursor dose (Fig.…”