Interfacial Adhesion of Pure-Silica-Zeolite Low-k Thin Films

Abstract

AbstractNanoporous zeolite thin films are promising candidates as future low dielectric constant (low-k) materials. During the integration process with other semiconductor materials, the residual stresses resulting from the synthesis processes may cause fracture or delamination of the thin films. In order to achieve high quality low-k zeolite thin films, the evaluation of the adhesion performance is important. In this paper, laser spallation technique is utilized to investigate the interfacial adhesion of zeolite thin film-Si substrate interfaces prepared using three different processes. The experimental results demonstrate that the nature of the deposition method has a great effect on the resulted interfacial adhesion of the film-substrate interfaces. This is the first time that the interfacial strength of zeolite thin films-Si substrates is quantitatively evaluated. The results have great significance in the future applications of low-k zeolite thin film materials.