Effect of Hydrogen on Vacancy Formation in Sputtered Cu Films Studied by Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy

As a part of the LSI interconnect fabrication process, a post-deposition high-pressure annealing process is proposed for embedding copper into trench structures. The embedding property of sputtered Cu films has been recognized to be improved by adding hydrogen to the sputtering argon gas. In this study, to elucidate the effect of hydrogen on vacancy formation in sputtered Cu films, normal argon-sputtered and argon-hydrogen-sputtered Cu films were evaluated by positron annihilation spectroscopy. As a result, monovacancies with a concentration of more than 10(-4) were observed in the argon-hydrogen-sputtered Cu films, whereas only one positron lifetime component corresponding to the grain boundary was detected in the normal argon-sputtered Cu films. This result means monovacancies are stabilized by adding hydrogen to sputtering gas. In the annealing process, the stabilized monovacancies began clustering at around 300 degrees C, which indicates the dissociation of monovacancy-hydrogen bonds. The introduced monovacancies may promote creep deformation during high-pressure annealing. (C) 2013 The Japan Society of Applied Physics