SOLVENT FREE THIN FILM PRECIOUS METAL NANOTECHNOLOGY
Ceimig Limited supplies proprietary enabling technologies for the deposition of nanoscale platinum and other pgm metal features in a diversity of applications across the semiconductor, electronic, fuel cell and sensor manufacturing industries. The resultant metal features exhibit excellent conductivity and high adhesion, offering new technical possibilities to the semiconductor and emerging nano-technology industries. The unique features of the technology
are that:
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It allows the deposition of metal features as small as 20 nanometres wide
on substrates as diverse as glass, oxided silicon, alumina and fuel cell electrodes. |
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This is about 1/10th of the size of metal features that can be laid down
using current technologies and is a requirement of the semiconductor
road map for devices from 2006 onward. |
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It is a three step process compared with the industry’s current six
step process. |
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It dispenses with the need for acids or solvents in process and is thus
more environmentally friendly than current practice. |
Ceimig’s technology allows many of the current generation of precious metal deposition processes to be replaced by an efficient, three-step, solvent-free and innovative photo-chromatic excitation processes as may be seen above
in figures 1 and 2.
The resultant metal features are distinguished by their acuity and orthogonality as may be seen from the detail in the adjacent atomic force microscope image (Figure 3).
The annealing process converts the exposed pgm precursor to a pure crystalline metallic feature which, owing to its purity, continuity and lack of inclusions has virtually the same conductivity as the pure metal. The final conductivity achieved is a function of the length of the annealing cycle as
may be seen in the chart (Figure 4).
A feature of the chemistry is the degree of adhesion of the metal to a wide variety of substrates including silicon, oxided silicon and glass. Deposited structures easily pass the Scotch Tape test.
A 4 Greek cross with CV curve data is shown below (Figure 5) of 40 nm height profile, with sheet resistance 0.5x10-7Ωm, a value in good
accordance with that of 1.06x10-7Ωm for single crystal Pt.
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