Design and Characterization of Materials and Processes for Area Selective Atomic Layer Deposition

Area selective atomic layer deposition (ASALD) is demonstrated to be a promising route to perform direct patterned deposition. In particular, methods to modify (or mask) the surface and process parameters to perform selective deposition of titanium dioxide have been developed and investigated in detail. Results indicated that self assembled monolayer based masking methodology posses significant limitations due to challenges associated with obtaining defect free monolayer and absence of traditional patterning techniques. On the other hand, polymer films based masking methodology offer a better alternative to perform ASALD. A number of factors that must be considered in designing a successful ASALD process based on polymer films were identified. These include: reactivity of polymer with ALD precursor, diffusion of ALD precursors through polymer mask and remnant precursor content in the polymer film during ALD cycling. Investigations suggested that ALD nucleation can be successfully blocked on polymer films that do not contain direct OH sites in their backbone. It was observed that sorption of water in the polymer film does not pose a serious limitation however; metal precursor diffusion through the polymer mask was identified as a critical parameter in determining the minimum required masking layer thickness for a successful ASALD process. In addition, a novel ASALD-based top surface imaging (TSI) technique has been developed. The ASALD-TSI process has demonstrated sharp contrast (etch barrier deposition vs exposure dose) and therefore offers the potential to overcome many of the challenges experienced with conventional TSI schemes.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Henderson, Clifford L.; Committee Chair: Hess, Dennis W.; Committee Member: Gallivan, Martha A.; Committee Member: Summers, Christopher J.; Committee Member: Tolbert, Laren M