Abstract

The characteristics of aluminum (Al) films prepared by the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique using trimethylaluminum (TMA) and a hydrogen plasma were examined for use as a wetting layer for the two-step cold/warm Al deposition. The most important role of a hydrogen plasma was to act as a reducing agent for TMA. The growth rate was saturated at 0.15 nm/cycle, demonstrating that the thickness can be precisely controlled by the number of cycles. Initial layer-by-layer growth was observed and this continued for up to 50 cycles (∼7.5 nm). The root-mean-square thickness variation of an Al film deposited in five cycles (∼0.75 nm) was found to be 0.188 nm. As the PH2/PTMA injection ratio was increased to 10 at a buffer line, the carbon concentration decreased to 1–3 at. %. The resistivity of a 100-nm-thick Al film was 10 μΩ cm and this film was polycrystalline in nature. ALD Al films also had good step coverage on high aspect ratio trenches.

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