Self-formed mn oxide barrier on SiOCH for nanoscale copper interconnect by metal organic chemical vapor deposition of Mn.

Both the formation of self-formed barrier (SFB) of Mn oxide on porous low dielectric constant (low-k) SiOCH trench and Cu filling (MOCVD) in order were carried out by in-situ metal organic chemical vapor deposition to make Cu interconnect. Oxygen-plasma pretreatment of the low-k dielectrics surface enhanced the uniformity of deposited Mn layers as well as the formation of SFB prior to Cu MOCVD. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the presence of amorphous MnOx and MnSi(y)Oz layers in SFB. Electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) measurements of cross-sectional samples of the deposited layers on porous low-k blanket and trench surfaces enabled in-depth analysis of the elemental composition of the Cu/SFB multilayers with high spatial resolution. The effectiveness of the SFB layer in protecting Cu diffusion into the low-k layer was proven by EELS and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analyses. The Mn L3/L2 intensity ratio from EELS data enabled us to identify the possible compounds of the SFB layers including MnSiO3 near the dielectric surface, Mn2O3 near the Cu layer, and Mn3O4 at the intermediate region.

Fabrication of highly uniform conductive polypyrrole nanowires with DNA template.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is considered as one of the alternative materials for electronic device applications; however, DNA has critical limitation to electronic device applications due to its low electrical conductivity and unreliability. Therefore, it is required for electronic devices to prepare the well defined conductive polymer nanowires with DNA as a template. Polypyrrole (PPy) is an attractive polymer due to its high conductivity and environmental stability in bulk; although it is well known that ammonium persulfate (APS) used for the polymerization of pyrrole causes the deformation of DNA molecules. We minimized the damage of immobilized DNA strands on (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) modified silicon wafer during APS polymerization. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) images from different APS treatment times and from using the vortex process obviously showed the effect on the synthesis of individual and continuous polypyrrole nanowires (PPy NWs). The PPy NWs at various pyrrole concentrations had similar height; however, the higher concentration gave more residues. Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectroscopy provided the strong evidence that PPy NWs were successfully synthesized on the DNA strands.