Low Temperature Thermal Atomic Layer Deposition of Aluminum Nitride Using Hydrazine as the Nitrogen Source

Yong Chan Jung; Su Min Hwang; Dan N Le; Aswin L N Kondusamy; Jaidah Mohan; Sang Woo Kim; Jin Hyun Kim; Antonio T Lucero; Arul Ravichandran; Harrison Sejoon Kim; Si Joon Kim; Rino Choi; Jinho Ahn; Daniel Alvarez; Jeff Spiegelman; Jiyoung Kim

doi:10.3390/ma13153387

Low Temperature Thermal Atomic Layer Deposition of Aluminum Nitride Using Hydrazine as the Nitrogen Source

Materials (Basel). 2020 Jul 31;13(15):3387. doi: 10.3390/ma13153387.

Authors

Yong Chan Jung¹, Su Min Hwang¹, Dan N Le¹, Aswin L N Kondusamy¹, Jaidah Mohan¹, Sang Woo Kim^{1

2}, Jin Hyun Kim^{1

2}, Antonio T Lucero¹, Arul Ravichandran¹, Harrison Sejoon Kim¹, Si Joon Kim³, Rino Choi², Jinho Ahn⁴, Daniel Alvarez⁵, Jeff Spiegelman⁵, Jiyoung Kim¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 West Campbell Road, Richardson, TX 75080, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Inha University, 100 Inha-ro, Michuhol-gu, Incheon 22212, Korea.
³ Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Kangwon National University, 1 Gangwondaehakgil, Chuncheon, Gangwon-do 24341, Korea.
⁴ Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul 04763, Korea.
⁵ RASIRC Inc., 7815 Silverton Avenue, San Diego, CA 92126, USA.

Abstract

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films were grown using thermal atomic layer deposition in the temperature range of 175-350 °C. The thin films were deposited using trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and hydrazine (N₂H₄) as a metal precursor and nitrogen source, respectively. Highly reactive N₂H₄, compared to its conventionally used counterpart, ammonia (NH₃), provides a higher growth per cycle (GPC), which is approximately 2.3 times higher at a deposition temperature of 300 °C and, also exhibits a low impurity concentration in as-deposited films. Low temperature AlN films deposited at 225 °C with a capping layer had an Al to N composition ratio of 1:1.1, a close to ideal composition ratio, with a low oxygen content (7.5%) while exhibiting a GPC of 0.16 nm/cycle. We suggest that N₂H₄ as a replacement for NH₃ is a good alternative due to its stringent thermal budget.

Keywords: aluminum nitride; atomic layer deposition (ALD); hydrazine; trimethyl aluminum (TMA).

Abstract

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