Characteristics of high-purity Cu thin films deposited on polyimide by radio-frequency Ar/H2 atmospheric-pressure plasma jet

With a view to fabricating future flexible electronic devices, an atmospheric-pressure plasma jet driven by 13.56 MHz radio-frequency power is developed for depositing Cu thin films on polyimide, where a Cu wire inserted inside the quartz tube was used as the evaporation source. A polyimide substrate is placed on a water-cooled copper heat sink to prevent it from being thermally damaged. With the aim of preventing oxidation of the deposited Cu film, we investigated the effect of adding H-2 to Ar plasma on film characteristics. Theoretical fitting of the OH emission line in OES spectrum revealed that adding H-2 gas significantly increased the rotational temperature roughly from 800 to 1500 K. The LMM Auger spectroscopy analysis revealed that higher-purity Cu films were synthesized on polyimide by adding hydrogen gas. A possible explanation for the enhancement in the Cu film deposition rate and improvement of purity of Cu films by H-2 gas addition is that atomic hydrogen produced by the plasma plays important roles in heating the gas to promote the evaporation of Cu atoms from the Cu wire and removing oxygen from copper oxide components via reduction reaction. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4795808]