Atmospheric-pressure atomic layer deposition (ALD) is an upcoming technology poised to revolutionize the commercial production of large-area substrates and unlock new applications in high-porosity/3D materials.

In order to measure silicide-to-silicon specific contact resistance rho_c, transmission line model (TLM) structures were proposed as attractive candidates for embedding in CMOS processes. We optimized TLM structures for nickel silicide and platinum silicide and evaluated them for various doping levels of n- and p-type Si. The measurement limitations and accuracy of the specific contact resistance extraction from the optimized TLM structures are discussed in this paper.

A novel atomic layer deposition (ALD) process was developed for low-resistivity molybdenum (Mo) from molybdenum dichloride dioxide (MoCl2O2) and atomic hydrogen (at-H). A wide ALD window of self-limiting growth was observed between 150 and 450 °C. No film deposition occurred with molecular hydrogen (H2), demonstrating the necessity to have at-H to efficiently reduce the MoCl2O2 precursor. At 350 °C and above, the film composition was determined at approximately 95 at. % of Mo and 3.5 at % of oxygen (O), with trace amounts (i.e., <1 at. %) of carbon (C), chlorine (Cl), hydrogen (H), and nitrogen (N). The growth per cycle (GPC) was roughly 0.022 nm/cycle. No substrate selectivity or pronounced nucleation delay was observed on silicon (Si), silicon dioxide (SiO2), silicon nitride (Si3N4), silicon carbide (SiC), aluminum oxide (Al2O3), hafnium dioxide (HfO2), and low-k dielectric (SiOC). Film uniformity and conformality were ±5% and ±10%, respectively, while resistivity approached a bulk value of 18.6 μ Ω cm at 24 nm. At 250 °C and below, increased levels of oxygen (up to 33 at. % at 150 °C) and chlorine (2.7 at. % at 150 °C) were detected in the film. This trend coincided with an increase in the GPC, a change in optical properties, a decrease in film density and crystallinity, and an increase in resistivity. While self-limiting growth was observed through the entire ALD window of 150–450 °C, the temperature (T) range for depositing low-resistivity Mo deposition was narrower at T ≥ 250 °C.

We present the monolithic integration of deep-submicrometer complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) microchips with a-Si:H solar cells. Solar cells are manufactured directly on the CMOS chips. The microchips maintain comparable electronic performance, and the solar cells show efficiency values above 7%. The yield of photovoltaic cells on planarized CMOS chips is 92%. This integration allows integrated energy harvesting using established process technologies and, as such, is an important step toward wireless autonomous microsystems (i.e., “smart dust”).

This article describes novel composite thin films consisting of GaN, C and Ga (referred to as ‘GaCN’, as an analogue to BCN and other carbonitrides) as a prospective material for future optical applications. This is due to their tuneable refractive index that depends on the carbon content. The composites are prepared by introducing alternating pulses of trimethylgallium (TMG) and ammonia (NH3) on silicon substrates to mimic an atomic layer deposition process. Since the GaCN material is hardly reported to the best of our knowledge, a comprehensive characterization is performed to investigate into its chemical nature, primarily to determine whether or not it exists as a single-phase material. It is revealed that GaCN is a composite, consisting of phase-segregated, nano-scale clusters of wurtzitic GaN polycrystals, in addition to inclusions of carbon, nitrogen and gallium, which are chemically bonded into several forms, but not belonging to the GaN crystals itself. By varying the deposition temperature between 400 and 600 oC, and the NH3 partial pressure between 0.7×10-3 and 7.25 mbar, layers with a wide compositional range of Ga, C and N are prepared. The role of carbon on the GaCN optical properties is significant: an increase of the refractive index from 2.19 at 1500 nm (for carbon-free polycrystalline GaN) to 2.46 (for GaCN) is achieved by merely 10 at. % of carbon addition. The presence of sp2 hybridized C=N clusters and carbon at the interface of the GaN polycrystals are proposed to determine their optical properties. Furthermore, the formation of the GaN polycrystals in the composite occurs through a TMG:NH3 surface-adduct assisted pathway, whereas the inclusions of carbon, nitrogen and gallium are formed by the thermal decomposition of the chemisorbed TMG species.