Modification of low κ materials for ULSI multilevel interconnects by ion implantation

Alok Nandini U Roy, A. Mallikarjunan, A. Kumar, J. Fortin, G. S. Shekhawat, Robert Geer, Katherine Dovidenko, Eric Lifshin, H. Bakhru, T. M. Lu

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Thin films of low dielectric constant (κ) materials such as Xerogel (κ=1.76) and SiLKTM(κ=2.65) were implanted with argon, neon, nitrogen, carbon and helium with 2 × 1015 cm-2 and 1 × 1016 cm-2 dose at energies varying from 50 to 150 keV at room temperature. In this work we discuss the improvement of hardness as well as elasticity of low κ dielectric materials by ion implantation. Ultrasonic Force Microscopy (UFM) [6] and Nano indentation technique [5] have been used for qualitative and quantitative measurements respectively. The hardness increased with increasing ion energy and dose of implantation. For a given energy and dose, the hardness improvement varied with ion species. Dramatic improvement of hardness is seen for multi-dose implantation. Among all the implanted ion species (Helium, Carbon, Nitrogen, Neon and Argon), Argon implantation resulted in 5× hardness increase in Xerogel films, sacrificing only a slight increase (∼ 15%) in dielectric constant.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)349-354
Number of pages6
JournalMaterials Research Society Symposium - Proceedings
Volume716
StatePublished - 2002
EventSilicon Materials - Processing, Characterization and Reliability - San Francisco, CA, United States
Duration: Apr 1 2002Apr 5 2002

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering

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