Single-source chemical vapor deposition of clean oriented Al 2O 3 thin films

Abstract

Clean oriented Al 2O 3 thin film with a dominant Al 2O 3 <1 1 3> plane was deposited on Si <1 0 0> substrate at 550 °C, by single-source chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using aluminium(III) diisopropylcarbamate, Al 2(O 2CN i Pr 2) 6. This process represents a substantial reduction in typical CVD film growth temperatures which are typically > 1000 °C. Through the studies of thermal stability of this precursor, we propose a specific β-elimination decomposition pathway to account for the low temperature of the precursor decomposition at the substrate, and for the lack of carbon impurity byproducts in the resulting alumina films that are characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and depth profiling.