ZnO by ALD - Advantages of the Material Grown at Low Temperature

The 3D-architecture is a prospective way in miniaturization of electronic devices. However, this approach can be realized only if metal paths are placed not only at the top, but also beneath the electronic parts, which imposes drastic temperature limitations for the electronic device processing. Therefore last years a lot of investigations are focused on materials which can be grown at low temperature with electrical parameters appropriate for electronic applications. Zinc oxide grown by the atomic layer deposition method is one of the materials of choice. We obtained ZnO-ALD films at growth temperature range between 100°C and 200°C, and with controllable electrical parameters. Free carrier concentration was found to scale with deposition temperature, so it is possible to grow ZnO films with desired conductivity without any intentional doping. We used correlation of electrical and optical parameters to optimize the deposition process. Zinc oxide layers obtained in that way have free carrier concentration as low as $10^{16} cm^{-3}$ and high mobility ($10-50 cm^{2}$/(Vs)), which satisfies requirements for a material used in three-dimensional memories.