(Invited) Atomic Layer Deposition and Etching of 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Materials

Ultra-thin layer of two dimensional (2D) materials mainly transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductor possess exceptional properties such as electrical, optical, magnetic, mechanical and chemical. This allows the exploration of internal quantum degrees of freedom of electrons and their potential for use in optoelectronic, energy, and sensor applications. At present, research on 2D-layered TMDs mostly rely on (i) flakes produced by exfoliation from bulk, (ii) synthesis by high temperature (800-1000 o C) mostly by chemical vapor deposition or (iii) solution based methods. Although exciting results are being obtained, but all these methods have limitations such as poor quality of the material, lack of precise control of thickness, interface or ability to integrate them into complex 3D devices. Nevertheless, the biggest challenge in realizing their full potential has been the lack of doable material synthesis methods of such films with high uniformity, conformality and interfacing with other materials such as oxides and metals. Among the various thin film growth methods, atomic layer deposition (ALD) offers the best combination of a controlled layer-by-layer growth of the material with high conformality and suitable integration with other oxides such as dielectrics and metals. At the same time, precisely control thermal-based etching method for 2D-TMD materials are needed. Secondly at present, there are tremendous attention and efforts on development of the thermal vapor based well control etching methods especially on atomic layer etching (ALEt). The successful combination of both ALD and ALEt of 2D-TMD can pave the way to control the synthesis of 2D-TMD layers over large areas. This will be important for 2D-TMD material integration for future successful large-scale complex device structures fabrication. Here we will first discuss the ALD growth of 2D-TMDs (e.g. MoS 2 , HfS 2 and MgS 2 ) on metals (e.g. Mo, W and TiN), dielectric oxides (e.g. Al 2 O 3 , MgO, HfO 2 , and TiO 2 ) and vice versa. Then precise control etching processes based on molybdenum hexafluoride (MoF 6 ) and H 2 O vapor will be discussed. The MoF 6 -H 2 O precursors based etching process offer several advantages including low cost, low processing temperature, rapid and effective etching spanning the range from continuous etching to atomic layer etching (ALEt). We have used in-situ quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements to monitor the deposition and etching 2D-TMDs layers. Next, the deposited and etched 2D-TMDs thin films were analyzed by spectroscopic ellipsometry to determine the thickness and refractive index, and the composition was determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). These ex-situ measurements confirmed the 2D-TMDs deposition and etching behavior findings from our in-situ studies.