Selectivity and Growth Rate Modulations for Ruthenium Area-selective Deposition by Co-Reagent and Nanopattern Design

Area-selective deposition (ASD) is a bottom-up technique that provides numerous opportunities for nanoelectronic device fabrication. For example, advanced nano-interconnect structures with barrierless metals like Ru in the contact holes can be created by Ru ASD with the bottom metals as growth surfaces and dielectrics as non-growth surfaces. This work investigates Ru ASD by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on industrially relevant substrates and nanopatterns and reveals how selectivity and growth rate are modulated by the CVD conditions and type of nanopattern. For low-k dielectric/Cu substrate combinations, the selectivity reverses from metal-on-metal to metal-on-dielectric upon only changing the CVD co-reagent from H₂ to NH₃. In contrast, NH₃ is the preferred co-reagent for SiO₂-TiN line patterns with critical dimension (CD) of 40 nm due to the more favorable adsorption and diffusion kinetics that cause growth rate and selectivity enhancement. Consistent with a diffusion-mediated mechanism, the growth rate enhances even more for Ru CVD on nanoscale contact holes with CD of 10.5 nm, becoming 2.4 times higher as compared to unpatterned substrates. Thus, the ASD process changes drastically when pattern dimensions reach the nanoscale. The reported insights facilitate rational design of metal ASD processes for multiple applications in nanofabrication.