Abstract
A new cost-effective atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique, known as Proximity-Scan ALD (PS-ALD) was developed and its benefits were demonstrated by depositing $Al_2O_3$ and $HfO_2$ thin films using TMA and TEMAHf, respectively, as precursors. The system is consisted of two separate injectors for precursors and reactants that are placed near a heated substrate at a proximity of less than 1 cm. The bell-shaped injector chamber separated but close to the substrate forms a local chamber, maintaining higher pressure compared to the rest of chamber. Therefore, a system configuration with a rotating substrate gives the typical sequential deposition process of ALD under a continuous source flow without the need for gas switching. As the pressure required for the deposition is achieved in a small local volume, the need for an expensive metal organic (MO) source is reduced by a factor of approximately 100 concerning the volume ratio of local to total chambers. Under an optimized deposition condition, the deposition rates of $Al_2O_3$ and $HfO_2$ were $1.3\;{\AA}/cycle$ and $0.75\;{\AA}/cycle$, respectively, with dielectric constants of 9.4 and 23. A relatively short cycle time ($5{\sim}10\;sec$) due to the lack of the time-consuming "purging and pumping" process and the capability of multi-wafer processing of the proposed technology offer a very high through-put in addition to a lower cost.