Stress control of sputter-deposited Mo-N films for micromechanical applications

Hannu Kattelus, J. Koskenala, Arto Nurmela, A. Niskanen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

25 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Sputter-deposited metallic thin films are attractive materials for micromechanics but they suffer from large stress variations within the batch or even a single wafer. The origin of such variations is in the microcrystalline structure, and specifically its dependence on sputtering geometry. It might be assumed that getting rid of the long-range atomic order in the deposited film would help in obtaining improved uniformity. The purpose of this study is to amorphise molybdenum films by nitrogen and to characterize the resulting Mo N film properties. A partial cure for the nonuniformity of stress is, indeed, realized since film-plane stress variations are eliminated by nitridation. A vertical gradient still remains, bending relieved micromechanical beams strongly upwards. This behavior is believed to be due to imperfect amorphisation -the existence of columnar nano-scale crystallites.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)97-105
JournalMicroelectronic Engineering
Volume60
Issue number1-2
Early online date8 Dec 2001
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2002
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • micromechanics
  • molybdenum nitride
  • amorphous metal
  • mechanical properties
  • stress
  • metal micromachining

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