?The Degradation of Deposition Blocking Layer during Area Selective Plasma Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition of Cobalt

Abstract

The effects of plasma on the degradation of the deposition blocking layer during area-selective atomic layer deposition were investigated. Co atomic layer deposition (ALD) processes were developed by using Co(iPr-AMD)(2) (bis (N,N'-diisopropylacetamidinato)cobalt(II)) as a precursor, and two different reactants, NH3 gas for thermal ALD (TH-ALD) and NH3 plasma for plasma-enhanced ALD (PE-ALD). TH- and PE-ALD were applied to area selective ALD (AS-ALD) by using an octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) as a blocking layer. Both ALD processes produced pure Go films with resistivities as low as 50 mu Omega cm. For PE-ALD, however, no selective deposition was achieved due to a degradation of the OTS hydrophobicity caused by the NH3 plasma exposure. The effects of the plasma on the blocking efficiency of SAM were studied.