Institute of Materials Science University of Connecticut Storrs
In chemical vapor deposition (CVD), one of the goals is to deposit inorganic materials or metals at low substrate temperatures. To deposit metals, an organometallic precursor is often used. It has recently been shown that thermolysis of (trialkylphosphine) cyclopentadienylcopper(I) into a heated substrate will result in deposition of high-purity copper metal. The surface products of the decomposition reaction are free alkyl phosphine and unstable adsorbed cyclopentadienyl copper. The organic radicals couple and desorb, leaving a film of copper metal with high conductivity and no detectable residue of phosphorous. Continuous polycrystalline films form on Si or SiO*2 only if the substrate temperature is above 200oC. If these substrates are precoated with 500 A of Cu over 500 A of Cr, continuous film growth can be achieved at temperatures as low as 130oC.
D.B. Beach, F.K. LaGoues, C.-K. Hu, "Low-temperature chemical vapor deposition of...