Comparative Study of Thermal and Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition of Iron Oxide Using Bis(N,N'-di-butylacetamidinato)iron(II)

Boyun Choi; Gun-Woo Park; Jong-Ryul Jeong; Nari Jeon

doi:10.3390/nano13121858

Comparative Study of Thermal and Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition of Iron Oxide Using Bis(N,N'-di-butylacetamidinato)iron(II)

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2023 Jun 14;13(12):1858. doi: 10.3390/nano13121858.

Authors

Boyun Choi¹, Gun-Woo Park¹, Jong-Ryul Jeong¹, Nari Jeon¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Only a few iron precursors that can be used in the atomic layer deposition (ALD) of iron oxides have been examined thus far. This study aimed to compare the various properties of FeO_x thin films deposited using thermal ALD and plasma-enhanced ALD (PEALD) and to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using bis(N,N'-di-butylacetamidinato)iron(II) as an Fe precursor in FeO_x ALD. The PEALD of FeO_x films using iron bisamidinate has not yet been reported. Compared with thermal ALD films, PEALD films exhibited improved properties in terms of surface roughness, film density, and crystallinity after they were annealed in air at 500 °C. The annealed films, which had thicknesses exceeding ~ 9 nm, exhibited hematite crystal structures. Additionally, the conformality of the ALD-grown films was examined using trench-structured wafers with different aspect ratios.

Keywords: bis(N,N′-di-butylacetamidinato)iron(II) (FeAMD); hematite; high aspect ratio; iron oxides; plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition; thermal atomic layer deposition; trench structures.

Grants and funding

Not Acailable/Chungnam National University