Reaction and Transport Interplay in Al MOCVD Investigated Through Experiments and Computational Fluid Dynamic Analysis

Abstract

An improved reactive transport model of a metallorganic chemical vapor deposition process for the growth of aluminum films from dimethylethylamine alane is developed. The computational fluid dynamics model is built under PHOENICS software for the simulation of the coupled fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemistry. The growth mechanism of aluminum films is based on well-established, in the literature, reaction order and activation energy of gas-phase and surface reactions. The improvement of the model against a simplified model is established. The interplay of reaction and transport is elucidated. In particular, the important effects of the gas-phase reaction and of the showerhead system are revealed; accounting for gas-phase along with surface reactions for the flow details in the showerhead and for the three-dimensional geometry induced by the distribution of the holes in the showerhead yields substantial enhancement of the predictive capability of the model. The satisfactory agreement between model predictions and growth-rate measurements allows one to understand and improve the process. The model is further used to investigate the effect of key operating parameters on the characteristics of the aluminum films. Simulation results are suggestive of modifications in the operating parameters that could enhance the growth rate and its spatial uniformity. ? 2010 The Electrochemical Society.