Use of a Reactive ion etch plasma system for conversion of thin salt infiltrated polymer films to metal and metal oxide layers

Thin polymer films (< 10 nm) can readily be deposited on substrates. Conversion of the polymer film to metal or metal oxide films can be achieved by infiltrating the polymer with metal salt and exposing the resulting film to plasma. Radicals and reactive ions from the plasma can remove both polymer and anionic groups from the salt leaving a metal layer. In Asymmetric Capacitive Plasma systems RF power controls the radical density and also ion density and energy. Increasing RF power to create more radicals also increases ion interaction at the surface and may completely remove the metal layer. Reductive processes using H2 can result in a metal layer at the surface. O2 plasma on the other hand can convert the metal layer to metal oxide. Al salt and Zr salts were used to infiltrate P2VP-OH polymer films and plasma was used to produce thin films whose nature depended on the plasma. XPS analysis was used to monitor the chemical nature of the resulting films.