Room-temperature atomic layer deposition of ZrO2 using tetrakis(ethylmethylamino)zirconium and plasma-excited humidified argon

Room-temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) of ZrO2 is developed with tetrakis(ethylmethylamino)zirconium (TEMAZ) and a plasma-excited humidified argon. A growth per cycle of 0.17 nm/cycle at room temperature is confirmed, and the TEMAZ adsorption and its oxidization on ZrO2 are characterized by IR absorption spectroscopy with a multiple internal reflection mode. TEMAZ is saturated on a ZrO2 surface with exposures exceeding ∼2.0 × 105 Langmuir (1 Langmuir = 1.0 × 10−6 Torr s) at room temperature, and the plasma-excited humidified argon is effective in oxidizing the TEMAZ-adsorbed ZrO2 surface. The IR absorption spectroscopy suggests that Zr-OH works as an adsorption site for TEMAZ. The reaction mechanism of room-temperature ZrO2 ALD is discussed in this paper.