Nano crystalline zinc oxide (ZnO) is deposited by room temperature atomic layer deposition (RT-ALD) using dimethylzinc and a plasma excited humidified Ar without thermal treatments. The TEM observation indicated that the deposited ZnO films were crystallized with grain sizes of ∼20 nm on Si in the course of the RT-ALD process. The crystalline ZnO exhibited semiconducting characteristics in a thin film transistor, where the field-effect mobility was recorded at 1.29×10-3cm2/V·s. It is confirmed that the RT deposited ZnO film has an anticorrosion to hot water. The water vapor transmission rate of 8.4×10-3g·m-2·day-1 was measured from a 20 nm thick ZnO capped 40 nm thick Al2O3 on a polyethylene naphthalate film. In this paper, we discuss the crystallization of ZnO in the RT ALD process and its applicability to flexible electronics.

Low-temperature deposition of Y2O3 at 80°C is studied using an yttrium precursor of tris(butylcyclopentadienyl)yttrium (Y(BuCp)3) and plasma exited humidified argon oxidizer. The deposition is demonstrated using an atomic-layer-deposition sequence; the Y(BuCp)3 and the oxidizing gases are time separately introduced to the reaction chamber and these injections are repeated. To determine the gas introduction conditions, surface reactions of Y(BuCp)3 adsorption and its oxidization are observed by an in-situ IR absorption spectroscopy. The deposited film is confirmed as fully oxidized Y2O3 by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The present deposition is applicable for the deposition of Y2O3 film on flexible polyethylene terephthalate films.

The low temperature deposition of AlN at 160 °C is examined by using trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and NH radicals from plasma excited Ar diluted ammonia. For the deposition, a plasma tube separated from the reaction chamber is used to introduce the neutral NH radicals on the growing surface without the direct impacts of high-speed species and UV photons, which might be effective in suppressing the plasma damage to the sample surfaces. To maximize the NH radical generation, the NH3 and Ar mixing ratio is optimized by plasma optical emission spectroscopy. To determine the saturated condition of TMA and NH radical irradiations, an in-situ surface observation of IR absorption spectroscopy (IRAS) with a multiple internal reflection geometry is utilized. The low temperature AlN deposition is performed with the TMA and NH radical exposures whose conditions are determined by the IRAS experiment. The spectroscopic ellipsometry indicates the all-round surface deposition in which the growth per cycles measured from front and backside surfaces of the Si sample are of the same range from 0.39∼0.41nm/cycle. It is confirmed that the deposited film contains impurities of C, O, N although we discuss the method to decrease them. X-ray diffraction suggests the AlN polycrystal deposition with crystal phases of AlN (100), (002) and (101). From the saturation curves of TMA adsorption and its nitridation, their chemical reactions are discussed in this paper. In the present paper, we discuss the possibility of the low temperature AlN deposition.

We report room-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) of SnO2 using tetramethyltin (TMT) as a precursor and plasma-excited humidified argon as an oxidizing gas and investigate the saturation behaviors of these gases on SnO2-covered Si prisms by IR absorption spectroscopy to determine optimal precursor/oxidizer injection conditions. TMT is demonstrated to adsorb on the SnO2 surface by reacting with surface OH groups, which are regenerated by oxidizing the TMT-saturated surface by plasma-excited humidified argon. We provide a detailed discussion of the growth mechanism. We also report the RT ALD application to the RT TFT fabrication.