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Role of substrates morphology and chemistry in ALD HfO₂ on Si(111)-H terminated surfaces as model
(2017)
This work presents an approach to investigate fundamental aspects concerning the early stage of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) growth process on stepped surfaces. The first interaction between precursors and surface is strongly important for the ALD growth that it is still far away from the status to be completely understood.
For this purpose, a few ALD-cycles withtetrakis(dimethylamido)hafnium (TDMAH) and trimethylaluminum (TMA) as metallic precursors and water (H₂O) as oxidant has been performed in order to study the initial metal oxide film growth on stepped surfaces such as silicon Si(111)-H terminated, highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and silver deposited HOPG (Ag-HOPG). These investigations have been carried out at various substrate temperatures, where scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used systematically to probe the ALD features. This technique is delivering unique knowledge about the locality and the density of nucleation’s sites on the different substrates. The data collected are then subjected to a mathematical model to understand the growth and to determine the effect of the surface morphology and chemistry on the behavior of the nucleation.
The in-situ cycle-by-cycle STM investigation of 4 initial ALD cycles of TDMAH and H₂O on Si(111)-H terminated at room temperature (RT) and at 280°C displays two regimes of growth: In Regime I (1st - 2nd cycle) an increase in roughness in the first cycle to 0.2nm and 0.34nm respectively for RT and 280°C with a partial surface coverage of 71% and 54% is observed. In the 2nd cycle, the coverage increased to ~98% and 94% maintaining the same film height of the 1st cycle. A complete layer is formed in this regime. The results are discussed in reference to the Puurunen model. Following this model, the determination of the reaction mechanism in relation to the number of Hf atoms/nm² attached to the surface reveals that two ligands exchanges occur at RT and one ligand exchange at 280°C in the first regime. In addition, the origin of the reaction saturation was determined to be caused by the steric hindrance effect. In this first regime, the growth model is governed by random deposition followed by Mullins diffusion as determined from the universal values found for the roughness dynamic exponents (α, β, 1/z) of the film.