Self-catalyzed chemical vapor deposition method for the growth of device-quality metal thin films

Deposition of metals and alloys was demonstrated using thermal chemical vapor deposition starting from commercially available precursors in the absence of molecular hydrogen. The adopted chemical strategy relies solely on the selective reactivity of alcohols with metal complexes at deposition temperature. In this report, particular interest was given to the growth of nickel and silver. This process allows the optimization of the growth of single hcp and fcc phases of nickel starting from Ni(acac) 2, whereas several silver precursors allow the deposition of the fcc crystalline structure of silver. Steady growth kinetics, without incubation time, was noticed for all investigated precursors. The electrical conductivity of hcp-Ni, fcc-Ni and fcc-Ag shows the typical decay to the bulk value with increased film thickness, and the temperature resistivity coefficients are similar to the corresponding bulk material.