Rhenium deposition on a silicon surface at the room temperature for application in microsystems

Abstract Rhenium is a refractory metal (the melting temperature is 3190 °C) which is of a certain interest for the electronic technology. In spite of such a high melting point, the electrochemical method allows us to obtain rhenium deposits at the room temperature. Such deposits can be used in the silicon microtechnology for formation of field emitters, barrier and high-resistant layers. Despite the fact that the process of rhenium electrochemical plating on metals is well-known, optimal conditions of rhenium deposition on silicon, which is the main material in state-of-the-art microsystems, are still not clear. In this paper, we report results of rhenium plating on a silicon surface. A number of solutions, deposition conditions and surface preparation methods are described in order to obtain high quality rhenium deposits on a silicon surface.