Initial Growth Study of Atomic-Layer Deposition of Al₂O₃ by Vibrational Sum-Frequency Generation

The initial growth during the atomic-layer deposition (ALD) of Al₂O₃ using trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water was studied on two starting surfaces: SiO₂ and -H-terminated Si(111) [H/Si(111)]. In situ spectroscopy ellipsometry (SE) showed virtually immediate growth of Al₂O₃ on both surfaces, although for H/Si(111) a reduced growth-per-cycle was observed in the initial 20 cycles. The underlying surface chemistry during the initial cycles of ALD was monitored with in situ broadband sum-frequency generation (BB-SFG) spectroscopy. For the SiO₂ surface, the -CH₃ surface groups were followed revealing that only the first TMA half-cycle deviates from the steady-growth regime. The reaction cross section of the initial TMA half-cycle (σ_TMA = 2.0 ± 0.2 × 10^-18 cm²) was a factor of 3 lower than the cross section of the TMA half-cycle during the steady-growth regime of ALD (σ_TMA = 6.5 ± 0.6 × 10^-18 cm²). All H₂O half-cycles, including the first, showed steady-growth behavior with a corresponding reaction cross section (σ_H = 4.0 ± 0.4 × 10^-20 cm²). Therefore, only the first ALD cycle was affected by initial growth effects on the SiO₂ starting surface, in line with the SE data. For the H/Si(111) surface, the Si-H groups were monitored with BB-SFG spectroscopy, revealing a reaction cross section of σ_TMA = 3.1 ± 0.3 × 10^-18 cm² for the first TMA half-cycle on H/Si(111); a factor two lower than that during the steady regime of Al₂O₃. These results demonstrate that the chemistry during the initial growth regime of Al₂O₃ ALD on SiO₂ and H/Si(111) shows subtle but measurable differences compared to the steady-growth regime.