Application of Plasma processing for conversion of salt infiltrated polymer films to metal oxide films.

Oxygen plasma treatment is an alternative to Ultra-Violet-Ozone for conversion of metal-salt infiltrated polymer films to metal oxides films. Ion action at the surface can enhance the process chemistry and resulting film properties in plasma. A Design Of Experiment (DOE) was used to investigate the effects of process time, gas pressure and RF power on plasma processing of P2VP films infiltrated with AlNO$_{\mathrm{3}}$ or CuNO$_{\mathrm{3}}$. Optical Emission Spectroscopy and a Langmuir probe were used to monitor atomic oxygen (O) and ion plasma densities. The processed films were examined using XPS and Ellipsometry. RF and pressure were found to have a strong effect on O/ O$_{\mathrm{2}}^{\mathrm{+}}$ ratios in the plasma. XPS results indicated that polymer removal and salt conversion complete in minutes using plasma, while UV/O$_{\mathrm{3}}$ took several hours to achieve similar results. The XPS Silicon Oxide peaks were compared to unprocessed coupons to check for oxidation of the underlying silicon.