Improvement of surface morphology of aluminum thin films grown by metallorganic chemical vapor deposition

Surface morphology of aluminum thin films grown by metallorganic chemical v apor deposition has been improved by growing aluminum/titanium nitride mult ilayers. When the aluminum films were deposited continuously, the reflectan ce vs. deposition thickness curves showed a maximum reflectance at the comp letion of coalescence of islands, and then showed a gradual decay with incr easing aluminum thickness because of nonuniform grain growth. By inserting 1 nm titanium nitride layer grown by atomic layer deposition on aluminum la yer at the maximum reflectance, the reflectance was recovered again to the peak reflectance like a sinusoid waveform. Therefore, without considerable loss of electrical conductivity surface smoothness of aluminum films has be en able to be achieved by repeating the aluminum/titanium nitride multilaye r depositions. (C) 2000 The Electrochemical Society. S1099-0062(99)10-085-3 . All rights reserved.