In this GOALI project funded by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Charles Winter of Wayne State University and Dr. Marek Boleslawski of Sigma-Aldrich Fine Chemicals (SAFC Hitech) Corporation will develop and test chemical precursors for atomic layer deposition (ALD) film growth techniques. A primary target film composition will be the Cu/Mn alloy, because these films have been shown to form 2-8 nm MnSixOy diffusion barriers between the silica/silicon and copper layers. Such Cu diffusion barriers are critical for the microelectronics industry in their quest for fabricating smaller feature sizes on silicon chips. Presently, only sputtering methods are capable of forming requisite Cu/Mn alloy films, and they provide poor coverage when applied to substrates with very small feature sizes. A central feature of the collaborative project will be sending Wayne State University students to SAFC Hitech for 3 to 6 month internships to gain an industrial perspective on the electronic chemical field. Students from Wayne State University will also travel to the laboratories of Professor Lauri Niinist at the Helsinki University of Technology for 6-8 week visits to participate in film growth and characterization experiments.
