Researchers are demonstrating the feasibility of using hydrogen azide, HN3, for ultra low temperature, plasma-free nitridation. Their goal is to achieve breakthroughs both in reducing the time/temperature budget and in improving performance of nitride films for ULSI microelectronics and flat panel display manufacturing. Non-plasma based thermal and photodissociation of hydrogen azide for low temperature silicon nitride CVD is the subject of the research. The emphasis is placed on characterization of major process chemistries resulting from thermal and photodissociation of hydrogen azide, including analysis of the effluent, and determining deposition parameters which yield films with good physical and electrical properties.CVD SiN films will be a demonstration vehicle forming the basis for applications evaluations in Phase II. This approach promises ultra low temperature processing, the absence of charged particle induced device damage, low pinhole density, reduction of hydrogen incorporation, low particulate generation, wide area uniformity, and controlled nitrogen radical species that can be tailored for specific films. The variety of available azide sources allows for choice of best point-of-use chemistries that will enable advanced ULSI and flat panel display fabrication processes.Commercial Applications:New point-of-use azide sources allow for low temperature (<300øC) deposition of SiN films for gate dielectric in a-Si TFTs used in both static RAM and flat panel displays. We also envision future use for low temperature ROXNOX SiO2 and Oxynitride thin gate dielectric films, and TiN films.
