The filling of deep vias and trenches with metal for interconnect layers in microelectronic devices requires anisotropic deposition techniques to avoid formation of voids. Ionized metal physical vapor deposition ~IMPVD! is a process which is being developed to address this need. In IMPVD, a magnetron sputter deposition source is augmented with a secondary plasma source with the goal of ionizing...

Vapor phase syntheses, including parylene chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and initiated CVD, enable the deposition of conformal polymer thin films to benefit a diverse array of applications. This short review for nanotechnologists, including those new to vapor deposition methods, covers the basic theory in designing a conformal polymer film vapor deposition, sample preparation and imaging techn...

The solution of a boundary–value problem formulated for the Kretschmann configuration shows that the phase speed of a surface–plasmon–polariton (SPP) wave guided by the planar interface of a sufficiently thin metal film and a sculptured thin film (STF) depends on the vapor incidence angle used while fabricating the STF by physical vapor deposition. Furthermore, it may be possible to engineer th...