Interfacial Adhesion of Cu to Self-Assembled Monolayers on SiO₂

Abstract

As the critical feature size in microelectronic devices continues to decrease below 100 nm, new barrier materials of > 5 nm thickness are required. Recently we have shown that self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are attractive candidates that inhibit Cu diffusion into SiO₂. For SAMs to be used as barriers in real applications, however, they must also promote adhesion at the Cu/dielectric interfaces. Here, we report preliminary quantitative measurements of interfacial adhesion energy and chemical binding energy of Cu/SiO₂ interfaces treated with nitrogen-terminated SAMs. Amine-containing SAMs show a ~10% higher adhesion energy with Cu, while interfaces with Cu-pyridine bonds actually show degraded adhesion, when compared with that of the reference Cu/SiN interface. However, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements show that Cu-pyridine and Cu-amine interactions have a factor-of-four higher binding energy than that of Cu-N bonds at Cu/SiN interfaces. The lack of correlation between adhesion and chemical binding energies is most likely due to incomplete coverage of SAMs.