Film Formation Mechanisms and Interfacial Interactions Derived from In-Situ Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Ex-Situ XPS

There is a trend toward the miniaturization of devices for a multitude of industries (microelectronic, energy harvesting/collecting, sensing, etc.) to decrease production costs, increase yields and to optimize efficiencies. As these device dimensions decrease, the interfaces formed in these multicomponent systems are becoming increasingly important, to the point of dominating overall performance. This dissertation addresses the interfacial evolution and mechanisms of film formation for a variety of systems relevant to the microelectronics and energy harvesting industries. In the first example, the pretreatment of a silicon surface with an aluminum-containing precursor is evaluated for low temperature growth of silicon nitride; a film necessary for many steps in transistor fabrication. In the second example, the passivation of quantum dots by various metal oxides is explored for applications in photovoltaic energy harvesting. In the final example, the interface between silicon and a novel tin-oxo based photoresist is controlled to yield desirable film removal properties, while the mechanism for patterning of this resist is also explored.