Growth of metallic nanodots using specific precursors

Abstract

A technique to form metallic nanodots in a two-step process involving: (1) reacting a silicon-containing gas precursor (101) (e.g., silane) to form silicon nuclei (117) over a dielectric film layer (103B); and (2) using a metal precursor to form metal nanodots where the metal nanodots use the silicon nuclei (117) from step (1) as nucleation points. Thus, the original silicon nuclei (117) are a core material for a later metallic encapsulation step. Metallic nanodots have applications in devices such as flash memory transistors.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates generally to semiconductor devices, and more particularly to fabrication processes for producing metallic nanostructures on dielectric materials. Background technique [0002] Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM) structures are commonly used in integrated circuits for non-volatile data storage. As is known, EEPROM device structures typically include a floating gate with charge storage capability. Charge can be forced into or removed from the floating gate structure using a control voltage. The conductivity of the channel underlying the floating gate changes significantly due to the presence of charge stored in the floating gate. Since the difference in conductivity of a charged or uncharged floating gate can be current sensed, this allows determination of a binary memory state. Conductivity differences are also determined by the threshold voltages (V t ) offset representation. [0003] As semic...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Currently known existing methods are only based on metal physical vapor deposition (PVD) coatings such as dewetting phenomena that occur during the annealing step, or single-step metal CVD deposition

However, none of these techniques allow control of nanocluster density and nanocluster size

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