Silicon oxide coating

All experiments were performed on 200mm wafers using Semitool s plating tool. Trenches with various geometries and aspect-ratios were patterned in silicon oxide coated wafers. Titanium Nitride (TiN) or Tantalum (Ta) diffusion barriers with nominal thickness of 300 A were deposited on the trenches by vacuum techniques such as PVD or CVD. Unless specified differently, a PVD copper adhesion layer with a nominal thickness of 200A was deposited on top of the barrier by PVD techniques. This thin PVD copper adhesion layer was electrochemically enhanced in Semitool s proprietary ECD seed plating solution prior to the full deposition from an acid copper sulfate bath. 

The fabrication of the first efficient large area (ca. 1 cm8) SBSC has been reported.72 73 It consists of a Schottky barrier of 5 nm Cr overlaid with 5—7 nm Cu on 2 fi cm p-type silicon, with a top (ohmic) contact of A1 fingers covered with 69 nm of antireflective silicon oxide coating. The sunlight conversion efficiency of the cell is 9.5%. 

There are three major processes for applying the silicon oxide coating evaporation, sputtering, and chemical plasma deposition. 

Discuss advantages and disadvantages of metallization compared to use of silicon oxide coating. 

The correlation of pull-off forces with the cosine of contact angles measured with water clearly showed the applicability of this approach for various polar pol3uners (66,85). For apolar pol5miers, for example, the Lifshitz theory can be successfully applied to predict the chemical contrast. Feldman and co-workers demonstrated this powerful quantitative approach for different pol5miers probed with gold-coated and silicon oxide coated tips in perfluorodecalin (86), in which the dispersive van der Waals interactions are selectively amplified (see section Surface Forces and Energies). 

Feldmann and co-workers studied phase-separated blends of PS and PMMA with gold-coated and silicon oxide coated tips in perfiuorodecalin (Fig. 24) (86), where the contrast is dominated by the selectively amplified dispersive van der Waals interactions. The gold-coated tip experiences higher friction forces on the PS compared to PMMA, while the silicon oxide terminated tip shows an inverted contrast. 

Bartak, D. E., Schleisman, T. D., and Woolsey, E. R., Electrodeposition and Characteristics of a Silicon-Oxide Coating for Magnesium Alloys," Proceedings of the International Magnesium Association, Quebec City, 1991, pp. 55-60. 

A similarly clear and predictable contrast has been reported by Feldman et al. for a phase separated blend of polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) imaged with gold-coated and silicon oxide coated tips in perfluorodecahn (Fig. 18) [125]. Here the contrast is dominated by the dispersive van der Waals interactions, which have been selectively amplified by... 

Leterrier " et al. studies the crack evolution of brittle silicon oxide coatings on polymer substrates with the fragmentation test. The number of cracks is counted as a function of the applied strain. The evolution of the crack density in a sample just above the erack onset strain is described with Weibull statistics. Weibull moduli... 

It is possible to maximise the chemical stability in acidic and alkahne solutions by an additional surface coating. For instance, protective silicon nitride and silicon oxide coating are deposited using CVD-deposition [246]. These layers lead to a significantly increased durability of the glass. In particular, the silicon nitride layer leads to a much improved durability in alkaline solutions whereas the silicon dioxide layer enhances the durability against acids. 

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