Crystal growth patterns in DC and pulsed plated galvanic copper films on (1 1 1), (1 0 0) and (1 1 0) copper surfaces

Copper films for printed circuit board applications have to be fine-grained to achieve even filling of vias. Electroplated Cu films on roll annealed Cu substrates may have unacceptably large epitaxial crystals. Here galvanic films were plated on oriented single-crystal Cu substrates from an additive-free electrolyte, as well as DC plating and pulse reverse (PR) plating with additives. The distribution of crystallite orientations was mapped with XRD and compared with the microstructure determined by SEM. For the additive-free bath on [1 1 1] and [1 0 0] oriented surfaces a gradual transition from epitaxial to polycrystalline is seen, while films on [1 1 0] substrates are persistently epitaxial. Without bath additives, twinning is the main mechanism for the transition to polycrystalline texture. For DC plating, additives (carriers, accelerators and levelers) promote fine-grained films with isotropic grain orientations, with films on [1 1 0] substrates being partially isotropic. Plating with carriers and accelerators (no leveler) yields films with many distinct crystallite orientations. These orientations result from up to five steps of recursive twinning. PR plating produces isotropic films with no or very few twins (〈1 1 1〉 and 〈1 0 0〉 substrates, respectively), while on 〈1 1 0〉 oriented surfaces the deposits are about 20% epitaxial.