Title :
A study of blister formation in ALD Al2O3 grown on silicon
Author :
Vermang, Bart ; Goverde, Hans ; Simons, Veerle ; De Wolf, Ingrid ; Meersschaut, Johan ; Tanaka, Shuji ; John, Joachim ; Poortmans, Jef ; Mertens, Robert
Author_Institution :
Imec, Heverlee, Belgium
Abstract :
This work investigates the formation of blisters during annealing an Al2O3 film grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on Si. This blistering phenomenon is shown to occur under an external load in the presence of a tensile residual stress: the total membrane stress is a super-imposition of the residual stress of the pre-stressed film and a concomitant stress due to change of blister profile. In the case of this Si/Al2O3 system, the film is indeed pre-stressed and the hydrostatic pressure is caused by (i) the effusion of H2 and H2O and (ii) Al2O3 being a diffusion barrier.
Keywords :
aluminium compounds; annealing; atomic layer deposition; diffusion barriers; elemental semiconductors; internal stresses; silicon; thin films; Si-Al2O3; annealing; atomic layer deposition; blister formation; concomitant stress; diffusion barrier; effusion; hydrostatic pressure; pre-stressed thin film; silicon; tensile residual stress; total membrane stress; Aluminum oxide; Annealing; Atomic layer deposition; Films; Silicon; Stress; Water;
Conference_Titel :
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2012 38th IEEE
Conference_Location :
Austin, TX
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-0064-3
DOI :
10.1109/PVSC.2012.6317802
