Grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering study of the structure of nanoporous ultralow-k dielectrics prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

This paper focuses on the structure of nanoporous SiOCH thin films deposited using a porogen approach by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering signal demonstrates the existence of a biphase pattern in hybrid films, deposited by PECVD. After porogen removal, there are few differences between pore pattern of optimized ultraviolet (UV) illuminated and thermally treated samples: anisotropy of the pore pattern is observed in both samples, probably due to the porogen degradation. Finally, a kinetic study of porogen degradation by UV shows that the porous structure develops in only a few minutes.