Aluminum plug formation by excimer laser irradiation for planarized multilevel metallization

Summary form only given. An aluminum-plug-formation technique achieved by excimer laser irradiation for planarized multilevel metallization is presented. The plug was formed by pyrolytic reactions using pulses from an XeCl excimer laser (150 mJ). The optical pulses are focused on an optical system to increase optical fluence. The optical system redefines and homogenizes the laser beam to a size of 2×2 mm² and is mounted on an X-Y stage which tracks the beam across the sample. A plug formed by four pulses is shown. During the irradiation, the sample was kept at room temperature, and the total of the amount of aluminum was controlled to just fill in each via hole. On the resulting surface insulator, aluminum is not found