[en] A detailed analysis of Pt/Ti, Pt/TiO₂, and Pt/ZrO₂ electrodes was carried out to develop a bottom electrode stack for sol-gel derived thin films capacitors. For the Pt/Ti stack, the choice of layer thickness and deposition temperature is found to affect adhesion to the SiO₂/Si substrate as well as the extent of hillock formation and Pt endash Ti interaction. By using elevated temperature deposition, Pt films close to 1 μm in thickness can be produced with relatively good adhesion and morphological stability using Ti adhesion layers. In addition, Pt films grown on ZrO₂ and TiO₂ adhesion layers exhibit little morphological change and no degradation in sheet resistance after annealing at 650 degree C. However, neither ZrO₂ nor TiO₂ are as effective as Ti metal in promoting Pt adhesion. Experiments aimed at establishing a correlation between hillock formation and capacitor yield revealed two important results. First, the behavior of Pt/Ti stacks during annealing in air is markedly different from their behavior during PZT film crystallization. Second, preannealing of the Pt/Ti in air prior to PZT film growth actually improves capacitor yield, even though hillock formation occurs during the preannealing treatment. Implications of these results regarding the role of hillocks in controlling capacitor yield are discussed. copyright 1997 Materials Research Society

[en] The C49 to C54 TiSi₂ transformation temperature is shown to be reduced by increasing the ramp rate during rapid thermal processing and this effect is more pronounced for thinner initial Ti and Ti(Ta) films. Experiments were performed on blanket wafers and on wafers that had patterned polycrystalline Si lines with Si₃N₄ sidewall spacers. Changing the ramp rate caused no change in the transformation temperature for 60 nm blanket Ti films. For blanket Ti films of 25 or 40 nm, however, increasing the ramp rate from 7 to 180 degree sign C/s decreased the transformation temperature by 15 degree sign C. Studies of patterned lines indicate that sheet resistance of narrow lines is reduced by increased ramp rates for both Ti and Ti(Ta) films, especially as the linewidths decrease below 0.4 μm. This improvement is particularly pronounced for the thinnest Ti(Ta) films, which exhibited almost no linewidth effect after being annealed with a ramp rate of 75 degree sign C/s. (c) 2000 American Vacuum Society

[en] Simultaneous measurements of shock velocity and optical reflectance at 1064, 808, and 404 nm of a high pressure shock front propagating through liquid deuterium show a continuous increase in reflectance from below 10% and saturating at ∼(40-60)% in the range of shock velocities from 12 to 20 μm/ns (pressure range 17-50 GPa). The high optical reflectance is evidence that the shocked deuterium reaches a conducting state characteristic of a metallic fluid. Above 20 μm/ns shock velocity (50 GPa pressure) reflectance is constant indicating that the transformation is substantially complete. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society

[en] Highly textured epitaxial metallizations will be required for the next generation of devices with the main driving force being a reduction in electromigration. Herein a model system of 190 nm of Al on a 140 nm layer of W grown on MgO <00l> substrates was studied. The W layer was <00l> oriented and rotated 45 degree sign with respect to the MgO substrate to minimize the misfit; the remaining strain was accommodated by dislocations, evident in transmission electron microscopy images. From high-resolution x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, the out-of-plane lattice parameter was determined to be 3.175 Aa, and the in-plane parameter was 3.153 Aa, i.e., the W film sustained a strain resulting in a tetragonal distortion of the lattice. XRD pole figures showed that the Al had four fold symmetry and two dominant orientations, <016> and <3 9 11>, which were twinned with multiple placements on the epitaxial W layer. The driving force for the tilted <001> and <011> orientations of Al on W is due to strain minimization through lattice matching. These results show that <00l> Al deposited at ambient conditions onto W is difficult to achieve and implies that electromigration difficulties are inherent. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics

[en] The formation mechanism of the ohmic Au/Ni/p-GaN contact has been investigated. We found that it is essential to (i) deposit a structure of Au and Ni in the proper deposition sequence, and (ii) anneal the bilayer structure in an oxygen containing ambient. Our findings indicated that oxygen assists the layer-reversal reactions of the metallized layers to form a structure of NiO/Au/p-GaN. The presence of oxygen during annealing appears to increase the conductivity of the p-GaN. It is further suggested that Ni removes or reduces the surface contamination of the GaN sample before or during layer reversal. In the final contact structure, an Au layer, which has a large work function, is in contact with the p-GaN substrate. The presence of Au in the entire contacting layer improves the conductivity of the contact. An ohmic formation mechanism based on our experimental results is proposed and discussed in this work. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics

[en] The dissociation behavior of dilute, immiscible Cu-alloy thin films is found to fall into three broad categories that correlate most closely with the form of the Cu-rich end of the binary alloy phase diagrams. Available thermodynamic and tracer diffusion data shed further light on alloy behavior. Eight alloying elements were selected for these studies, with five elements from groups 5 and 6, two from group 8, and one from group 11 of the periodic table. They are respectively V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Mo, Fe, Ru, and Ag. The progress of precipitation in approximately 500-nm-thick alloy films, containing 2.5-3.8 at. % solute, was followed with in situ resistance and stress measurements as well as with in situ synchrotron x-ray diffraction. In addition, texture analysis and transmission electron microscopy were used to investigate the evolution of microstructure and texture of Cu(Ta) and Cu(Ag). For all eight alloys, dissociation occurred upon heating, with the rejection of solute and evolution of microstructure often occurring in multiple steps that range over several hundred degrees between approximately 100 and 900 degree sign C. However, in most cases, substantial reductions in resistivity of the films took place below 400 degree sign C, at temperatures of interest to copper metallization schemes for silicon chip technology. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics