Method of growing electrical conductors
First Claim
1. A method of producing a conductive thin film, comprising:
- depositing a metal oxide thin film on a substrate by an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process; and
at least partially reducing said metal oxide thin film with one or more organic compounds that contain at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of —
OH, —
CHO and —
COOH.
2 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
This invention relates to manufacturing of integrated circuits (ICs) and especially conductive layers suitable for use in an IC. According to the preferred method a metal oxide thin film is deposited on a substrate surface and reduced thereafter essentially into a metallic form with an organic reducing agent. The metal oxide is preferably deposited according to the principles of atomic layer deposition (ALD) using a metal source chemical and an oxygen source chemical. The reduction step is preferably carried out in an ALD reactor using one or more vaporized organic compounds that contain at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of —OH, —CHO and —COOH.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method of producing a conductive thin film, comprising:
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depositing a metal oxide thin film on a substrate by an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process; and
at least partially reducing said metal oxide thin film with one or more organic compounds that contain at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of —
OH, —
CHO and —
COOH. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A method of producing a conductive thin film comprising the steps of:
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A. placing a substrate in a chamber;
B. exposing the substrate to a gaseous first reactant, wherein the first reactant adsorbs no more than a monolayer of metal species on the substrate;
C. removing gases from the chamber;
D. exposing the substrate to a second gaseous reactant comprising a compound that is capable of oxidizing the adsorbed metal species on the substrate into metal oxide;
E. removing gases from the chamber;
F. repeating the above steps B through E at least three times to form a metal oxide film; and
G. following step F, exposing the substrate to one or more organic compounds that contains at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of —
OH, —
CHO and —
COOH and that reduces the metal oxide film to metal. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25)
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26. A method of producing a conductive thin film comprising:
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depositing a metal oxide thin film of at least 1 nm thickness on a substrate; and
reducing said metal oxide thin film to metal by exposing the metal oxide thin film to one or more organic compounds that contain at least one functional group selected from the group consisting of —
OH, —
CHO and —
COOH.
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Specification