Kinetic and mechanistic study on the chemical vapor deposition of titanium dioxide thin films by in situ FT-IR using TTIP

The effect of the gas-phase reaction on the precursor decomposition, deposition rate and the properties of TiO2 films from MOCVD with titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) has been investigated. In situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurement was performed to study the gas-phase reaction mechanism at 300-600 degreesC. We concluded that the formation of propene, H2O and isopropanol was the key species to understand the real CVD processes. The TiO2 film was deposited in low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) and remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (remote-PECVD) reactor at the deposition temperature from 160 to 420 degreesC, which was characterized by SEM, XRD, Ellipsometer and atomic force microscopy. The deposition kinetics was dependent on the decomposition temperature of TTIP in different ambient (N-2, N-2/O-2 and N-2/O-2 plasma). Anatase TiO2 films were deposited with PECVD even at low temperature below 280 degreesC with the three times higher deposition rate than that of LPCVD. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.