Vapor deposition method for ternary compounds

Abstract

Embodiments provide a method for depositing or forming titanium aluminum nitride materials during a vapor deposition process, such as atomic layer deposition (ALD) or plasma-enhanced ALD (PE-ALD). In some embodiments, a titanium aluminum nitride material is formed by sequentially exposing a substrate to a titanium precursor and a nitrogen plasma to form a titanium nitride layer, exposing the titanium nitride layer to a plasma treatment process, and exposing the titanium nitride layer to an aluminum precursor while depositing an aluminum layer thereon. The process may be repeated multiple times to deposit a plurality of titanium nitride and aluminum layers. Subsequently, the substrate may be annealed to form the titanium aluminum nitride material from the plurality of layers. In other embodiments, the titanium aluminum nitride material may be formed by sequentially exposing the substrate to the nitrogen plasma and a deposition gas which contains the titanium and aluminum precursors.

Description

technical field [0001] Embodiments of the invention generally relate to methods of depositing materials, and more particularly, to vapor deposition processes for forming materials comprising ternary compounds. Background technique [0002] In the fields of semiconductor processing, flat panel display processing, or other electronic device processing, vapor deposition processes play an important role in depositing materials onto substrates. As electronic device geometries continue to shrink and device densities continue to increase, the size and aspect ratio of individual features become more challenging, such as a feature size of 0.07 μm and an aspect ratio of 10 or greater. Therefore, conformal deposition of materials used to form these devices is becoming increasingly important. [0003] While conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has proven successful in device geometries and aspect ratios down to 0.15 μm, more challenging device geometries require alternative dep...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0006] Although the PE-ALD process overcomes some of the disadvantages of the thermal ALD process due to the high reactivity of the reactant groups in the plasma, the PE-ALD process has many limitations

For example, the PE-ALD process causes plasma damage to the substrate (e.g. etching), incompatibility with certain chemical precursors, and requires additional hardware