Layer-by-layer NH3 plasma treatment for area-selective atomic layer deposition of high-quality SiO2 thin films

Area-selective atomic layer deposition (area-selective ALD) has been extensively studied because of its versatility in nanotechnological applications. The priority focus in area-selective ALD is to achieve the desired selectivity; thus, most studies to date have been concentrated on the reaction mechanism of ALD on growth/nongrowth substrates or the development of novel methodologies to resolve the challenges associated with its implementation in high-volume manufacturing. In this study, we performed area-selective ALD of SiO2 on SiO2, where SiO2 was not grown on SiNx, and suggested area-selective ALD approaches that could simultaneously enhance selectivity and film quality. An NH3 plasma treatment was applied to functionalize the SiNx surface with more Si-NH bonds, which exhibited low reactivity toward Si precursors. Although the SiO2 surface was also functionalized with Si-NH bonds, it was not fully converted into Si-NH because of its thermodynamic nature at low temperatures. Consequently, the results showed that NH3 plasma pretreatment was effective in increasing selectivity. Therefore, we performed a layer-by-layer NH3 plasma treatment during the ALD of SiO2 to deposit high-quality films without losing selectivity. The SiO2 film was densified, as confirmed by x-ray reflection spectra without nitrogen impurity incorporation. Electrical property measurements of metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors confirmed that this approach enabled simultaneous selectivity and SiO2 film-quality enhancement.