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Plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) enables the epitaxial growth of ultrathin indium nitride (InN) films at significantly reduced process temperatures and with greater control of layer thickness compared to other growth methods. However, the reliance on plasma-surface interactions increases the complexity of the growth process. A detailed understanding of the relationship between the plasma properties and the growth kinetics is therefore required to guide the tuning of growth parameters. We present an in situ investigation of the early-stage PEALD growth kinetics of epitaxial InN within three different plasma regimes using grazing incidence small-angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS). The GISAXS data are supported by diagnostic studies of the plasma species generation in the inductively coupled plasma source as a function of the relative concentrations of the nitrogen/argon gas mixture used in the growth process. The growth mode is found to be correlated to the production of nitrogen species in the plasma, with high concentrations of the atomic N species promoting Volmer–Weber growth (i.e., island growth) and low concentrations promoting Stranski–Krastanov growth (i.e., layer-plus-island growth). The critical thickness for island formation, island center-to-center distance, and island radius are found to increase with ion flux. Furthermore, the island center-to-center distance and areal density are observed to change only during plasma exposure and to continue changing with exposure even after the methylindium adlayer is believed to have fully reacted with the plasma. Our results demonstrate the potential to control the growth kinetics during PEALD of epitaxial films by intentionally accessing specific regimes of plasma species generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) is a cyclic atomic layer deposition process that incorporates plasma-generated species into one of the cycle substeps. The addition of plasma is advantageous as it generally provides unique gas-phase chemistries and a substantially reduced growth temperature compared to thermal approaches. However, the inclusion of plasma, coupled with the increasing variety of plasma sources used in PEALD, can make these systems challenging to understand and control. This work focuses on the use of plasma diagnostics to examine the plasma characteristics of a hollow cathode enhanced capacitively coupled plasma (HC-CCP) source, a type of plasma source that has seen increasing attention in recent years for PEALD. Ultraviolet to near-infrared spectroscopy as well as spatially resolved Langmuir probe and emissive probe measurements are employed to characterize an HC-CCP plasma source using nitrogen based gas chemistries typical of nitride PEALD processes. Spectroscopy is used to characterize the relative concentrations of important reactive and energetic neutral species generated in HC-CCP systems as a function of applied RF power, gas chemistry, and pressure. In addition, the electron energy distribution function, electron temperature, plasma potential, and plasma density for the same process parameters are examined using an RF compensated Langmuir probe and emissive probe. These measurements indicated that electron temperature (Te), electron density (ne), and plasma potential (Vp) varied significantly over the operating conditions examined with Te varying from 1.5 to 8 eV, Vp varying from 30 to 90 V, and ne varying between 1015 and low 1016 m−3. This wide range of plasma conditions is mediated by a mode transition from a low Te, high ne mode of operation at low pressure (<100 mTorr) to a high Te, low ne mode at higher pressures (>100 mTorr). These operational modes appear analogous to the classical γ and α modes of traditional capacitively coupled plasmas. Atomic N and H densities also vary significantly over the operating conditions examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]