Specific Process Knowledge/Thin film deposition/Deposition of Titanium

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Titanium deposition

Titanium can be deposited at DTU Nanolab by e-beam evaporation or sputtering.

• Ti deposition in Sputter System (Lesker)

Ti as an adhesion layer

Titanium is most often used as a adhesion layer for other metals, such as gold. Gold does not stick very well to Si, and to prevent it to come off in future process steps or in the final application, a layer of Ti (or Cr or an organic layer) is often deposited onto the wafer.

The most common thickness of the Ti adhesion layer is 10 nm. Also layers with a thickness of 5 nm is used. Read more about gold adhesion layers.

Very thin adhesion layers

If it is important to have a very thin Ti layer, it is possible to use even thinner adhesion layers. There is some experience in using a 3 nm Ti as adhesion layer for a 200 nm thick gold layer. In this case a Si wafer was dipped in buffer and rinsed in water immediately before being placed in the PVD equipment (Wordentec). After an RF clean process of the wafer, 3nm of Ti and 200 nm of Au was deposited, and this worked fine during futher processing.

Comparison of methods of Ti deposition

	E-beam evaporation (E-beam evaporator (Temescal) and E-beam evaporator (10-pockets))	Sputter deposition (Lesker)	Sputter deposition (Sputter-system Metal-Oxide (PC1) and Sputter-system Metal-Nitride (PC3))
General description	E-beam deposition of Titanium (line-of-sight deposition)	Sputter deposition of Titanium (some step coverage)	Sputter deposition of Titanium including HiPIMS and Pulsed DC (some step coverage)
Pre-clean	Ar ion etch (only in E-beam evaporator Temescal)		RF Ar clean
Layer thickness	10Å to 1 µm*	.	.
Deposition rate	1 Å/s to 10Å/s	Depending on process parameters, about 1 Å/s.	Depending on process parameters
Batch size	Up to 4x6" wafers Up to 3x8" wafers (ask for holder) smaller pieces	Smaller pieces Up to 1x6" wafers	Up to 10x4" or 6" wafers Many smaller pieces
Allowed materials	Almost any as long as they do not degas. See cross-contamination sheet.	Almost any as long as they do not degas. See cross-contamination sheet.	Almost any as long as they do not degas at the substrate temperature used for your process. See cross-contamination sheet.
Comment

* For thicknesses above 600 nm please write to metal@nanolab.dtu.dk to ensure that there is enough material available.