Overview of Sputtering System

• Applications (low pressure process)

•Thin film deposition
• Metals (DC sputtering)
• Dielectrics: silicon dioxide and aluminum oxide (RF sputtering)
• Alloys (Al-Cu-Si)
•Etching

• Sputter yield
• Sputtering Technologies
• DC (diode) sputtering
• RF (radio frequency) sputtering
• Magnetron sputtering
• Reactive sputtering

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 Basic Sputtering System

DC or RF

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Physics of Sputtering
• Physical sputtering is driven by momentum exchange between the ions and atoms in
the material, due to collisions.
• The incident ions set off collision cascades in the target. When such cascades recoil
and reach the target surface with an energy above the surface binding energy, an
atom can be ejected.
• If the target is thin on an atomic scale the collision cascade can reach the back side of
the target and atoms can escape the surface binding energy `in transmission'.
• The average number of atoms ejected from the target per incident ion is called the
sputter yield and depends on the ion incident angle, the energy of the ion, the
masses of the ion and target atoms, and the surface binding energy of atoms in the
target.

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 Mechanisms of Sputtering
Sputtering is a process that atoms are ejected from a solid target material
due to bombardment of the target by energetic particles
Reflected ions and
neutral atoms
Incident ions Secondary electrons

+ Sputtered ions from

the target material

Surface
Target material

• Ions with very low energy may be reflected away from the surface.
• Ions with energy less than 10eV, could also be adsorbed to the surface, giving up their
energy as heat.
• Ions with energy above about 5keV, will penetrate into the material and transfer their
energy to atoms in the target material.
• Ions with medium energy, transfer part of energy to heat and use the other part of energy
for physical rearrangement of the target surface. The atoms of the target materials will be
ejected out. 5
Sputtering mechanism

•Argon is used because it's inert, it's not reactive, and will not result in
unwanted chemical reactions during our process.
•When the argon gas is in the chamber, we apply a high negative electrical
voltage to the target.
•This high voltage is strong enough to strip an electron from the argon atoms
close to the target.
•That means that the argon atoms are now ionized and each argon atom has
a positive charge.
 Sputter Yield
Sputtering process is characterized by sputter yield (S), which is a
measure of efficiency of sputtering

ejected atoms or moledules

S
incident ions

Sputter yield depends on:

• the energy of incident ions
• the mass of incident ions
• the mass of target atoms
• the binding energy of atoms in the target
• the incident angle of ions
M gas ln E 1
S
M target E cos

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 Sputter Yield (Cont’d)

For each target material, there exists a

threshold energy, below which no
sputtering occurs
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 DC and RF Sputtering System

DC sputtering:
Used for sputtering metal
materials, such as Al, Ti, and
Au. The target acts as the
cathode in a diode system

DC or RF RF sputtering:
Used for dielectric materials,
such as SiO2, and Al2O3.
(Using DC sputtering for
dielectric material will cause
the buildup of positive
charges on the target. The
alternating potential voltage
can avoid the charge
buildup)

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 Pressure Effect

Optimal pressure is
around 100mTorr
(1Torr =133Pa)

Compromise between
• increasing number of Ar ions
• increasing scattering of Ar ions with neutral Ar atoms

How to increase the number of Ar ions without increasing the pressure?

Magnetron sputtering
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A process that uses ions of an inert gas to dislodge
atoms from the surface of a crystalline material, the
atoms then being electrically deposited to form an
extremely thin coating on a glass, metal, plastic, or
other surface.
Designs of Magnetron Sputtering System

SM: solenoid magnet Advantages:

M: magnet • Could be used together with DC or RF
E: electric field
• Higher sputter efficiency due to the increase of ionization of
B: Magnetic field
T: Target Ar atoms
P: Plasma • Higher sputter rate under lower pressure (10-5 or 10-3 Torr)
S: Substrate • Increase probability of electrons striking Ar atoms
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 Parameters for Magnetron Sputtering

• Deposition pressure : 10-5 to 10-3 Torr

• Pressure for DC or RF Sputtering: ~ 0.1 Torr
• Pressure for evaporation: ~ 0.01 Torr

• Deposition rate : 0.2 ~ 2 μm/min

• 10 times higher than DC or RF sputtering
• Deposition rate for evaporation is 2 ~5 μm/min

• Deposition temperature: 100 to 150oC

• Evaporation temperature is above 1000oC

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 Reactive Sputtering

• Sputtering metallic target in the presence of a reactive gas

mixed with inert gas (Ar)

• A mixture of inert +reactive gases used for sputtering

• oxides – Al2O3, SiO2, Ta2O5 (O2)
• nitrides – TaN, TiN, Si3N4 (N2, NH3)
• carbides – TiC, WC, SiC (CH4, C2H4, C3H8)

• Chemical reaction takes place on substrate and target

• Can poison target if chemical reactions are faster than sputter

rate

• Adjust reactive gas flow to get good stoichiometry without

incorporating excess gas into film

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 Comparison between Evaporation and
Sputtering
Evaporation Sputtering
• Low energy atoms (~ 0.1 eV) • High energy atoms/ions
(10 –20 eV)
• Better adhesion
• Low pressure, high vacuum • Higher pressure for DC/RF, but much lower
• Directional in nature pressure for magnetron sputtering
• Lower impurity • Poor directional
• Argon atoms implanted in the film
• Poor step coverage • Better step coverage

• Point source, poor uniformity • Parallel plate source, better uniformity

• For compound materials and alloys, • For compound materials, all components
different components evaporate at different sputtered with similar rate, which helps maintain
rate, which leads to poor stoichiometry stoichiometry

• Physical process • DC, RF, and magnetron sputtering are physical

processes
• Reactive sputtering is chemical process

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Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)

• Physics and Chemistry in CVD process

• Atmospheric CVD (APCVD)
• Low pressure CVD (LPCVD)
• Plasma-enhanced CVD (PECVD)
• Metal organic CVD (MOCVD)

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 Simple CVD Reactor

Temperature of the susceptor should be maintained, which is more challenging for

PECVD system.

Cooling system inside the susceptor in PECVD: plasma discharge increased the
susceptor temperature. Cooling is performed by circulating a coolant through a tube
inside the susceptor in order to sustain the susceptor temperature for large-area and
high rate deposition. (YB Lim, et al., Int. J. Precis. Eng. Man., 13(7), 2012)

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 Physics and Chemistry in the Reactor
CVD Process:
• Introduce reactive gases to the chamber
• Thermal decomposition of the gases through heat or plasma
• Gas absorption by substrate surface
• Reaction takes place on substrate surface and film is firmed
• Transport of volatile byproducts away form substrate
• Exhaust waste
Example: SiH4 (g)→ Si (s) +2H2 (g) (for polysilicon)
Physics and chemistry involved:
(1) Dilution of the SiH4
• The decomposition of silane gas (SiH4) around the susceptor decreased the deposition rate and
concentration of silane along the length of the reactor;
• The silane can be mixed with in an inert carrier gas, i.e., H2, to improve the uniformity of
deposition;
• The surface will have concentration of vacancies brought by H2.
(2) Homogeneous and Heterogeneous reaction
• Homogeneous: atoms of the solid are released from the gas (undesired)
• Heterogeneous: atoms of the solid form on the wafer surface (preferred)

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 Physics and Chemistry in the Reactor (2)

Example: SiH4 (g)→ Si (s) +2H2 (g)

(3) Other reactions in the reactor

SiH4 (g)→ SiH2 (s) +H2 (g)
SiH4 (g)+ SiH2 (g) → Si2H6 (g)
SiH6 (g) → HSi2H3(g)+H2(g)
• How to judge which reaction is dominant?
The equilibrium constant for each reaction.

(4) Gas flow:

• Gas flow determines the transport of the various chemical species in the chamber
• Important for temperature distribution

(5) Temperature effects:

• Deposition rate
• Uniformity
• Hot wall batch CVD reactor: for large batch processes, excellent temperature control, but low
deposition rate

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 Atmospheric CVD (APCVD)

Features:
• High reaction rate, poor uniformity and purity
• Run at atmospheric pressure
• Used for thick dielectrics with deposition rate higher than 1000Å/min

Example: SiH4 (g) + O2 (g)→ SiO2 (s) +2H2 (g)

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 Low Pressure CVD (LPCVD)
Features:
• Hot wall system and cold wall systems:
Hot wall system: uniform temperature distributions, but has deposition on the walls
Cold wall system: with reduced deposition on the walls
• Used for polysilicon and dielectrics (mostly in hot wall systems)
• Good purity, low deposition rate than APCVD
• Low pressure in the chamber (0.1 to 1.0 Torr)
• Temperature 550 ~ 650ºC

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 Plasma Enhanced CVD (PECVD)
Features:
• Deposit at low substrate temperature
• Used to deposit dielectrics over Al or GaAs
• Use plasma to enhance the decomposition and reaction in the CVD
• Very good at filling small features
• May induce plasma damage
• Plasma may increase the substrate temperature, so cooling on the substrate is
important
• Temperature can be as low as 120ºC

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 Metal Organic CVD (MOCVD)
Features
• Use gaseous organic precursors
• Advantages: highly flexible—> can deposit semiconductors, metals, dielectrics
• Disadvantages: highly toxic, very expensive source material, environmental disposal
costs are high.
• Uses: dominates low cost optical (but not electronic) III-V technology, some metallization

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 Summary on CVD
APCVD LPCVD PECVD MOCVD
Advantages High growth rate at Low pressure, Low flexible
atmospheric pressure temperature
high purity
Good for filling
small features
Disadvantage Poor purity Low growing Plasma damage Toxic, expensive
rate source materials

Materials Thick dielectric Poly-Si and Dielectrics over III-V materials

materials dielectric Al or GaAs
materials

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