Thermal Annealing of Molecular Layer-Deposited Indicone Toward Area-Selective Atomic Layer Deposition

Area-selective atomic layer deposition (AS-ALD) is a promising technique for fine nanoscale patterning, which may overcome the drawbacks of conventional top-down approaches for the fabrication of future electronic devices. However, conventional materials and processes often employed for AS-ALD are inadequate for conformal and rapid processing. We introduce a new strategy for AS-ALD based on molecular layer deposition (MLD) that is compatible with large-scale manufacturing. Conformal thin films of "indicone" (indium alkoxide polymer) are fabricated by MLD using INCA-1 (bis(trimethylsily)amidodiethylindium) and HQ (hydroquinone). Then, the MLD indicone films are annealed by a thermal heat treatment under vacuum. The properties of the indicone thin films with different annealing temperatures were measured with multiple optical, physical, and chemical techniques. Interestingly, a nearly complete removal of indium from the film was observed upon annealing to ca. 450 °C and above. The chemical mechanism of the thermal transformation of the indicone film was investigated by density functional theory calculations. Then, the annealed indicone thin films were applied as an inhibiting layer for the subsequent ALD of ZnO, where the deposition of approximately 20 ALD cycles (equivalent to a thickness of approximately 4 nm) of ZnO was successfully inhibited. Finally, patterns of annealed MLD indicone/Si substrates were created on which the area-selective deposition of ZnO was demonstrated.