Study of Mo 2 C Conductive Thin Films for Potential Applications in Miniaturized Integrated Circuit Interconnects

ABSTRACT As integrated circuits continue to advance toward fine and nanoscale nodes, Integrated circuit(IC)interconnects face bottlenecks, including rising resistance, signal delay, and increased power consumption. Accordingly, this study systematically investigates the application potential of molybdenum (Mo) and molybdenum carbide (Mo 2 C) films for IC interconnects. Calculations based on ideal crystalline Mo 2 C reveal strong Mo‐ 4d /C‐ 2p hybridization, mixed covalent–metallic bonding, and a high density of states near the Fermi level of 21.6 states eV −1 , supporting its metallic transport potential and structural stability. Experimentally, the optimized Mo 2 C film shows a low resistivity of 6.09 µΩ·cm, with favorable mechanical stability and high‐temperature structural retention, indicating a balanced combination of electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties. After annealing at 400°C–600°C, the Mo 2 C/crystalline‐Si interface maintains good integrity, with limited elemental intermixing and suppressed Si out‐diffusion. However, this interfacial evaluation is limited to the Mo 2 C/crystalline‐Si interface, and the barrier behavior of Mo 2 C at SiO 2 or low‐k dielectric interfaces requires verification. The combined results from process regulation, annealing experiments, atomic‐scale characterization and theoretical calculations confirm the performance advantages of Mo 2 C for fine nanoscale interconnects, thus providing critical data and theoretical support for material selection and performance optimization in semiconductor interconnects at the micro/nanoscale.