Surfactant-controlled damage evolution during chemical mechanical planarization of nanoporous films

The integration of nanoporous organosilicate thin films involving chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a significant challenge due the evolution of defects in the films during CMP in the form of cracking and delamination. This study shows that small changes in CMP electrolyte chemistry and surfactant additions can have dramatic effects on crack growth rates in the films. Crack growth rates were sensitive to the type of electrolyte and decreased in the presence of electrolytes that caused crack tip blunting. Growth rates were also sensitive to nonionic surfactant additions where molecular structure and weight were demonstrated to be important variables. An optimized blend of surfactants and electrolytes can significantly retard defect evolution due to molecular bridging. Surfactant self-assembly and resulting molecular bridging were characterized by in situ atomic force microscopy and used to quantify the molecular bridging observed.