Abstract
Apart from the scientific interest, texture development in copper thin films is of crucial importance to their applications as interconnects or corrosion resistant coating. We report here a dominant [110] texture of copper thin films-preferred for oxidation-resistant applications-deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the copper films go through a transition from [111] columns to [110] hillocks as the deposition proceeds. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicates that the [110] grains nucleate at boundaries of [111] grains. Further, we have proposed a stress-driven nucleation and growth model of [110] grains based on the x-ray diffraction characterization and the TEM observations. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.