Direct measurement of grain boundary resistance in copper nanowires

Author

Li, An-Ping ; Kim, Tae-Hwan ; Zhang, X.-G. ; Nicholson, Don M. ; Evans, B.M. ; Kulkarni, N.S. ; Kenik, E.A. ; Meyer, H.M. ; Radhakrishnan, B.

Author_Institution

Center for Nanophase Mater. Sci., Oak Ridge Nat. Lab., Oak Ridge, TN, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

8-12 May 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

3

Abstract

As interconnect dimensions decrease, the resistivity of copper increases dramatically because of electron scattering from surfaces, impurities, and grain boundaries (GBs), and threatens to stymie continued device scaling. Here we directly measure individual GB resistances in copper nanowires with a one-to-one correspondence to the GB structure. The resistance of high symmetry coincidence GBs is then calculated using a first-principle method. GB resistance is found to differ by orders of magnitude between different types of GB, with random GBs showing an intrinsically higher resistance compared to coincidence GBs.

Keywords

ab initio calculations; copper; electrical resistivity; grain boundaries; impurities; nanowires; Cu; copper nanowires; direct measurement; electron scattering; first principle method; grain boundary resistance; impurities; interconnect dimensions decrease; Conductivity; Copper; Electrical resistance measurement; Grain boundaries; Nanowires; Resistance; Wires;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Interconnect Technology Conference and 2011 Materials for Advanced Metallization (IITC/MAM), 2011 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Dresden

ISSN

pending

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-0503-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IITC.2011.5940291

Filename

5940291