Lesker ALD tool talk

Ultra High Purity Condition ALD

DATE: Wednesday, December 10, 2025
TIME: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. ET
LOCATION: MIT.nano, 12-0168
SPEAKERS: Noel O’Toole, Business Segment Manager – ALD, the Kurt J. Lesker Company and Sean Armstrong is the Technical Sales Manager – ALD, the Kurt J. Lesker Company

ABSTRACT
Nitride materials by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) are of significant interest for a wide range of electronic applications including logic, power, and optoelectronics devices. One of the challenges for obtaining high-quality nitrides by PEALD is the prevention of oxidation during growth. This is especially true for nitrides of elements with a high affinity for oxygen such as titanium nitride. Due to the relatively slow deposition rates of nitride materials grown by PEALD, these processes have long suffered from relatively high exposures to background oxygen impurities yielding elevated oxygen levels in the resulting layers.

In this talk, O'Toole and Armstrong will discuss how ultra-high purity (UHP) reactor conditions provide a process environment for growth of nitride thin films with low oxygen content by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD). In particular, how UHP conditions correspond to partial pressures below 10-8 Torr for impurities within the PEALD process environment to limit incorporation before, during and after film growth.  They will identify the various sources of background oxygen species and describe the measures taken to obtain UHP ALD reactor conditions.

See the event webpage: https://mitnano.mit.edu/events/tool-talks/lesker-ald