Chemistry of Materials
Chemistry of Materials
5 years ago

Role of Trimethylaluminum in Low Temperature Atomic Layer Deposition of Silicon Nitride

Role of Trimethylaluminum in Low Temperature Atomic Layer Deposition of Silicon Nitride
Anupama Mallikarjunan, Aaron Dangerfield, Yves J. Chabal, Alain Estève, Agnes Derecskei-Kovacs, Jeremy Cure, Ronald M. Pearlstein, Charith E. Nanayakkara, Xinjian Lei
Aminosilanes are attractive precursors for atomic layer deposition of silicon oxides and nitrides because they are halide-free and more reactive than chlorosilanes. However, the deposition of silicon nitride on oxide substrates still requires relatively high temperatures. We show here that for a process involving disec-butylaminosilane and hydrazine, the insertion of Al from trimethyl aluminum allows the deposition of silicon nitride films at relatively low temperatures (250 °C). First-principles calculations reveal that the presence of Al increases the binding of molecular hydrazine, thereby effectively enhancing the reactivity of hydrazine with the silicon precursor during the atomic layer deposition process, which leads to nitrogen incorporation into silicon. However, the range of this enhancement is limited to ∼1 nm, requiring additional trimethylaluminum exposures to continue the Si3N4 deposition.

Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b01816

DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b01816

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.