Study on chemical vapor deposited copper films on cyano and carboxylic self-assembled monolayer diffusion barriers

Abstract Thin copper films were produced by chemical vapor deposition using the precursor Cu II bis-hexafluoroacetylacetonate on the SiO 2 /Si substrate modified with cyano and carboxylic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) as diffusion barriers. The characterizations of the deposited copper films were measured by various thin film analysis techniques, i.e. , scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The comparison between copper deposited on SiO 2 and on the SAM-modified SiO 2 substrates indicates that the copper films tend to be deposited onto the SAM-modified substrate, which is further proved by the calculation results of the interaction energies of copper and the SAMs with density functional theory method.