Fabrication Techniques for Mems-based Sensors: Clinical Perspective

Prof. Hardik J Pandya

Department of Electronic Systems Engineering
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Lecture – 06
Physical Vapour Deposition

Hi, welcome to this particular module. So, here what we will be learning today is what
you mean by Physical Vapour Deposition. If I want to deposit a metal on a substrate , for
example.

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Let us say we want to form this pattern on a substrate which is my silicon wafer.
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I want to form this pattern on my silicon substrate or oxidized silicon substrate. So, this
pattern is formed using photolithography, but the first point is how can I deposit this
metal, this is gold by the way. So, how can we deposit this metal, how can we deposit an
insulator, how can we deposit a semiconductor? So, the answer to the question is by
using techniques like physical vapor deposition. So, as the name suggests we are using
physical techniques to vaporize the material and deposit it on the substrate.

Now, when we talk about physical vapor deposition then within physical vapor
deposition, there is thermal evaporation, electron beam evaporation and sputtering. So,
today we will look at all the three techniques to understand how we can deposit a metal-
semiconductor and an insulator on the substrate. And as we know the substrate can be
glass which is an insulator substrate, it can be a semiconductor which is silicon or
germanium or gallium nitrate or silicon carbide. It can be anything that you are using as a
base it can be a metal substrate as well.

So, let us start with thermal evaporation and what do you mean by thermal evaporation?
Thermally evaporating something. So, what is that something we will look at it, we will
take an example of a metal and we will see how we can evaporate the metal in thermal
operation.
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So, if you see the screen, in physical vapor deposition, the physical methods produce the
atoms that deposit on the substrate. Two techniques; first one evaporation, second one
sputtering sometimes physical vapor deposition is also called vacuum deposition because
the process is usually done in an evacuated chamber.

PVD is used for metals in general not limited to metals however, and dielectric can be
deposited using specialized equipment. So, this particular system is a thermal evaporator,
this and this system both are e beam evaporator. So, what is thermal evaporator and what
is an e beam evaporator we will see. This system is from a company called Angstrom.
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Now, let us see how thermal evaporation can be done. So, this is called boat and this is
your coil. And these are used to hold the materials of our interest that we want to deposit.
So, what do you mean by that? let us say I have aluminium chunks loaded on the boat or
I have aluminium wires loaded on the coil. Now how to deposit this aluminium either in
the wire form or aluminium chunks onto a substrate.

So, this is the metal and let us say metal number 1, aluminium is our metal number 2.
The same way this will be our metal number 1 and aluminium wire will be metal number
2. Now, if I heat this metal 1; so, since it is metal it has extremely low resistance. So, if I
apply a voltage because of the low resistance there will flow of current there. And there
will be extremely high current flowing through the boat; because of the extremely high
current flowing through the boat. The boat will start heating because of the I 2R effect
also called as joules heating.

And the metal within the boat will start melting. If I keep on increasing the power what
will happen this metal will start evaporating, vaporizing.

Same thing goes for aluminium as well. What do I mean by aluminium as well? I mean
aluminium wire as well, because aluminium wire will also melt and be vaporized. When
I apply a very high power to my coil which is my metal 1 and the other metal will start
evaporating by melting first. The melting is then followed by vaporization. So, finally,
we will have metal on the substrate which is our aluminium .
Now, we have to have this entire system in a chamber that's why we need to create
vacuum.

Now, what is the role of vacuum? why do we have to create vacuum here? Because we
want to have very high mean free path. If the mean free path is higher we will have better
deposition with less collision between the atoms when they are getting deposited from
vapor to solid. Or semi-solid or semi-liquid to vapor and finally, getting deposited on the
substrate.

So, if the mean free path is higher then they have less collision between the atoms and
better deposition. That is the role of vacuum and that is why e beam evaporator or
thermal operator or sputtering is generally carried out under the vacuum.

Now, the very important point that you need to remember in this particular example, is
that when I am heating metal 1, my metal 1 is not getting evaporated only my metal 2 is
getting evaporated correct. My metal 1 is not affected only my metal 2 is affected if this
aluminium is metal 2. That means, to have a good deposition or to evaporate a material
of our interest that is material which is loaded on the boat or coil. The melting point, let
us say melting point we denote by MP.

So, melting point MP of metal 1 should be very higher than melting point of metal 2. The
melting point of metal one should be extremely high compared to melting point of metal
2. That is the melting point of boat and coil should be extremely high compared to
melting point of aluminium. And that is why if we want to deposit a material of which
the melting point is extremely high for example, silicon dioxide the melting point of
silicon dioxide is very high and we cannot use thermal evaporation.

Also for some metals we cannot use thermal evaporation. Because the melting point is
high, we do not have a substrate. So, we do not have a source, that has a similar melting
point like the material that we want to deposit that is we do not have anything which is
MP melting point M 1 greater than MP M 2.

Because if the melting point is close to the melting point of the material that we want to
evaporate then the metal 1 will start evaporating as well instead of getting a single metal
film will have an alloy. So, that is the drawback you can say or limitation of thermal
evaporation. Thermal evaporation cannot be used when you want to deposit a material,
which has a higher or high melting point which is close to the melting point of your boat
or your coil. So, in that case what can we do? So we will see that in the later part of this
module.

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now let us see quickly the evaporation that is thermally evaporation rely on thermal
energy supplied to crucible or a boat to evaporate; Evaporated atoms travel through the
evacuated space between source and the sample and stick to the wafer, stick to the
substrate here, 1, 2, 3, 4 we have noted 4 wafers.

The surface reaction usually occurs very rapidly and there is very little time or
rearrangement of the surface atoms after sticking. So, because there is very little
rearrangement time most of the film that we deposit would be amorphous in nature.

Thickness, uniformity, and shadowing by surface topography and step coverages are the
issues. Thickness uniformity we cannot obtain as there is shadowing effect by surface
topography and step coverage. So, if I want to deposit let us say these are my wafers, this
will be deposited correctly on this surface, but what about this, it would not be covered
properly that is what you mean by surface topography or step coverage.

Now, the one that you see is an example of force source evaporation. At the same time
you can load source one here, second source third source and fourth source. Four sources
you can load at the same time and you can heat one at a time. So, first you can heat first
particular source to deposit. So, it can be used when we want deposit chrome gold.

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We cannot deposit gold, as gold has poor adhesion. So, to improve the adhesion of the
gold we have to deposit a thin layer of chrome, now how to deposit chrome and gold
both. So, if we have multiple sources within the same chamber we can deposit first
chrome followed by gold. So, here we can do multiple layer deposition using the source
shown here. There is an advantage to this particular technology.

(Refer to Slide Time: 17:47)

Another point is the shutter, what is the role of shutter? when I deposit let us say a metal
how would you know if it has reached the particular thickness of what we desire.

This is silicon and I want to deposit this metal which is 1 micron. To know the thickness
measurement we use something called quartz crystal monitor Q C M to measure the
thickness of the material that is deposited on the wafer.

Second thing is when we heat this material we only want to start deposition when
everything has melted. First is solid, we need to heat it and should be melted once it has
melted it will start evaporating when it starts evaporating then it starts depositing. So, we
want to let everything melt properly and then when we start evaporating at a time we
want to start the deposition. So, how can we control this deposition? by using a shutter.

So, assume that there is a substrate that is a source that is in my hand here. Let us say this
is a source this is a material which I am depositing and this is my hand is a sub boat and I
applying very high voltage. So, this will start melting and when it starts melting I do not
want it to get deposited. So, somewhere in the top, there is a substrate and here there is a
shutter.

When I open the shutter then only this material will get deposited on the substrate. If I
have shuttered in between it cannot get deposited this is the role of shutter. So, shutter is
very important in this case, of evaporating a material because we want to start
evaporating the material when it is completely melted in my source.

So, this is the idea that is why if you see the screen you will see very clearly the role of a
shutter in thermal evaporation. So, that is the role of shutter if you see here this is your
shutter. That is how your thermal evaporation will work, but like I mentioned if your
material that you want to deposit has very high melting point thermal evaporation cannot
be used.
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So, now let us see the video of how the thermal evaporation can be used to deposit
material.

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We will now see the e-beam evaporation. So, we have been looking at thermal
evaporation and we have seen that there are few limitations of thermal evaporation. If the
material melting point is very high we cannot use it. So, what is an alternative technique,
so that even if the material has high melting point? We can still use the thermal way of
depositing the material.

So, the answer is electron beam evaporation. Here we have a crucible in which there is a
source then there is a filament, accelerating electrode the electron beams are generated in
the filament and they are accelerated through the accelerating electrodes. They are bent
through magnets which is a deflecting magnet and they are incident on the source. And
because of the high energy the source will start melting that is why we have written here
molten source.

In this case even the material that is the material of high interest which is over here is
having a higher melting point material, hence we can melt it using e beam evaporation.

This is an actual photograph you can clearly see that there is a shutter here, this is your
shutter let me just clear the screen. This is shutter, this is the source, e-beam will come
from here and will be incident on source . And the deflecting magnets as well as the
source everything lies way below here.

Now let us see here, electron beam evaporation is a powerful physical vapor deposition
process that allows the user to evaporate materials that are difficult or even impossible to
process using standard, resistive, thermal, evaporation. Some of these materials include
high-temperature material such as gold, titanium and some ceramics like silicon dioxide
and alumina. We can deposit very easily using e beam evaporation.

To generate an electron beam current is applied to a filament that is subjected to high

electric field. This field causes electrons in the filament to escape and accelerate. The
electrons are then focused by magnets to form a beam and are then directed towards the
crucible that contains material of interest. We have just discussed this thing. The energy
of electron beam is transferred to the material which causes it to start evaporating.

Many metals such as aluminium will melt first and then evaporate while ceramics will
sublimate we know it, ceramics will sublimate. The material vapours then travel out of
the crucible and coat the substrate once it is melted it will travel out of the crucible and it
will coat the substrate.
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Now, we have a different type of evaporation sources for e beam, we have either single
pocket or we have a rotary pocket or we have a linear pocket. So, single pocket for every
single pocket we can have only one source loaded in this area only one.

Rotary you can see the one that we have seen was rotary you see here this one is a rotary
pocket system. So, you can see one source here there are other sources here. So,
whenever you want we can bring the source in front and remaining source we can shield
it using this particular mechanism.

So, a single pocket is a water-cooled copper block is made out to have a pocket. In the
shape of an inverted truncated cone, the source material is placed within this pocket or
within a crucible whose exterior fits squarely within the pocket, the crucible has a
smaller similar pocket within it.

A magnet structure consisting of permanent magnet and two pole extensions are located
around the block such that its fields run parallel to one of the side blocks. So, here we
have everything comprising in same system, on the same side of the block is a filament
that produces electrons by thermionic emission and is formed into a beam that is called
emitter assembly.

The electron beam is steered by these fields in 270-degree arc to impinge on the center of
the pocket. The e beam energy is controlled such that magnetic field will bend it
precisely into the center of the pocket. An additional electromagnetic coil called sweep
coil is employed to effectively raster the beamer on the surface of the content of the
pocket to eventually heat the source material.

This part of the operation is typically referred to as XY sweeping. So, there is an XY

sweeping there is a raster scan, there is an XY sweeping and there is a direct incidence of
the e beam.

A variety of sweep patterns can be controlled there is also something called triangular. A
variety of sweep patterns are used in control program for electromagnetic coil, materials
with lower melting points melt readily and fill the crucible. They do not require
expensive materials. With higher melting point, we need to prevent e beam from boring a
hole in the melt. And subsequent spitting which creates large nodules of source in the
material growing thin film, what do you mean by that?

That if a material has a very high melting point then we require XY sweep if the material
does not have a melting point it can readily melt when the e-beam is incident on the
material.

Let us see rotary pocket, a rotary pocket e beam source has all same parts as a single
pocket unit except that the wafer cool coppers is essentially a turret of multiple pockets.
Each of these can be indexed into position with the design of a number of different
materials that can be evaporated sequentially from a common magnet to form the emitter
or sweep coil structure.

So, this is an advantage obviously this design includes additional shielding to prevent
cross-contamination of the pockets, the pocket in position is chosen via a motorized or
rotary index. So, we can change this pocket let us say there are four pockets 1, 2, 3, and
4. We can change the number of pockets by using a rotary or a motorized indexer.

Linear pocket e beam is similar to a rotary pocket except that its pockets are arranged in
a linear fashion. The first pocket goes, then if you do not want second pocket will go,
this pocket will move further. So, this one is here, the first one is here again shielded. So,
into position in a linear fashion within common magnet emitter sweep coil structure. So,
this is about the e-beam evaporation sources.
So, when we talk about e beam evaporation sources we can see that if we compare this
one. Now you can easily understand this is a rotary pocket source, but what if I do not
want to use e beam evaporation, is there any other method that can be used for depositing
metal or a material that has a very high melting point?

Now, this is our electrical way of heating the material, melting the material or
evaporating the material and depositing on the substrate, is there an alternative way. So,
we will see in the next class in, the next module an alternative way of depositing the
material onto the substrate and that is called sputtering.

Sputtering is a mechanical way of depositing a material onto the substrate. So, let us see
what is sputtering in the next module followed by photolithography very interesting
application and a heart of micro engineering till then you take care I will see you in the
next class, bye.