Low-temperature atomic layer deposition of copper(II) oxide thin films

Copper(II) oxide thin films were grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using bis-(dimethylamino-2-propoxide)copper [Cu(dmap)₂] and ozone in a temperature window of 80-140 °C. A thorough characterization of the films was performed using x-ray diffraction, x-ray reflectivity, UV Vis spectrophotometry, atomic force microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and time-of-flight elastic recoil detection analysis techniques. The process was found to produce polycrystalline copper(II) oxide films with a growth rate of 0.2-0.3 Å per cycle. Impurity content in the films was relatively small for a low temperature ALD process.