Incubation time for chemical vapor deposition of copper from hexafluoroacetylacetonate–copper I/ –vinyltrimethoxysilane

The incubation time in a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition MOCVD.system using copper I.–hexafluoroace- tylacetonate vinyltrimethoxysilane Cu hfac. VTMOS.. as the precursor to grow copper films has been investigated. For film deposition on a TiNrSi substrate in the presence of H2 at 473 K, the incubation time is 88 min, while it decreases to 4.3 min on a Pt-seeded surface. The incubation phenomenon is attributed to a heterogeneous nucleation process involving surface reactions of precursor. By using a first-order reaction approximation, the incubation time is correlated with the nucleation rate constant to give an activation of 5.5 kcalrmol in a temperature range of 463 to 498 K, indicative of a surface-reaction controlled regime concerning heterogeneous Cu nucleation. Observation of the very early stage of film growth by atomic force microscopy AFM.and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy XPS.reveals that growth of nucleus prevails in the period of incubation time. q2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved