Bias-stimulated nucleation of silver prepared by pulsed arc deposition on silicon oxide

The nucleation and interface formation between Ag films and native silicon oxide have been studied with x-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopies. Silver was deposited stepwise onto silicon native oxide by pulsed arc deposition technique onto grounded and biased substrates resulting in kinetic energy of incident silver ions of 95 and 720 eV, respectively. We show that an increase in the kinetic energy of silver ions leads to more homogeneous nucleation and earlier coalescence of Ag films due to surface defect generation and preferential sputtering of oxygen. In addition, deposition from high energy beam results in the formation of an extended transition layer containing a mixture of Ag and Si oxide that might be beneficial in improving adhesion of Ag films. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.