Complementary computational chemistry and surface science experiments of reaction pathways in aluminum chemical vapor deposition

Continued advances in the semiconductor industry will require the introduction of new materials and processes concurrent with shrinking device dimensions. These simultaneous demands drastically reduce margins for error and necessitate an increasingly quantitative understanding of semiconductor processes. Leaders of the semiconductor industry have recognized these challenges and featured atomistic process modeling as one of the "Difficult Challenges" for designs below 100 nm, predicted beyond the year 2006. Among these tasks, obtaining detailed, quantitative understanding of process chemistry and physics has been identified as on of the biggest hurdles. Another "chief roadblock" is linking atomistic reaction models to reactor scale process simulations. Process modeling includes simulations of reactor transport, thin film growth, morphology, and uniformity, and device feature profile evolution (how well desired features are grown). A key ingredient to processes modeling, whether atomistic or macroscopic, is knowledge of the elementary reaction pathways and chemical intermediates, and reaction thermodynamics and kinetics. Quantum chemistry methods present power tools to investigate these molecular properties for both gas phase and surface reactions. Along with pioneering efforts in applying these tools to semiconductor processes come issues such as understanding accuracy, how to approach a given problem, and defining problems into practical sizes. To this end, a combined experimental/theoretical study of aluminum chemical vapor deposition has been performed. Both conventional ab initio and more recent density functional theory methods (DFT) have been investigated and evaluated.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Chemical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Willis, Brian G

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Klavs F. Jensen.

• Chemical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8180

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8180