“3D printing in atomic level” -- Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD): On the physical and chemical details of alumina ALD Dongqing Pan, Chris Yuan Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 4/2015
You probably know 3D printing… Think about a car in microns… World’s first 3D-printed car: Strati. Micro-model race car: Vienna University of Technology 3D-printing using two-photon lithography Think about “3D printing in atomic level” … Well…Atomic Layer deposition (ALD)!
1. Highly uniform deposition on wafer surface; 2. Accurately-controlled film thickness; 3. Wide range of film materials; 4. Widely utilized in microelectronics industries. ALD is perfect in … 1. Low throughput; 2. Low material/energy efficiency; 3. Complex chemical mechanisms; 4. Nano-wastes and emissions. Well, ALD is actually not perfect … How to make the ALD process perfect ? … Numerical simulations?… Numerical modeling is decoupling, and then coupling the real world! Physical and chemical processes in ALD The Arrhenius equation Experiments… time-consuming and money-consuming… Actually we are presenting a combined experimental and numerical approach to study the ALD process! 1. Laminar flow (Momentum transport); 2. Heating (Convective heat transfer); 3. Species transport (Mass transfer); 4. Chemical reactions (Surface reactions). Good idea!
Experiments: Temperature effects on alumina film growth rate. Correlations of precursor concentration, surface species coverage, methane generation and bulk material deposition rate in the transient pulsing ALD processes. TMA pulsing animation Water pulsing animation Results: Comparisons of experimental and numerical investigations. On the transient fluid dynamics: precursor distributions during the full cycle of flow simulations.