Patent ID: 7354849

Claim:
A method comprising: providing a semiconductor substrate having a trench etched into a dielectric layer, wherein the trench includes a barrier layer and an adhesion layer; and performing a catalytically enhanced atomic layer deposition process that comprises: pulsing a first copper precursor to form a copper seed layer on the adhesion layer; pulsing an iodine precursor to form an iodine catalyst layer on the copper seed layer; and pulsing a second copper precursor to form a copper layer on the copper seed layer that fills the trench by way of a bottom-up fill mechanism due to the iodine catalyst layer; wherein the first and second copper precursors are selected from the group consisting of Cu(acac) 2 (where acac=acetylacetonato), Cu(thd) 2 (where thd=tetrahydrodionato), CpCu(CNMe), CpCu(CNCMe 3 ), Cp*CuCO, CpCuPR 3 (where R=Me, Et, or Ph), CpCu(CSiMe 3 ) 2 , MeCu(PPh 3 ) 3 , CuMe, CuCCH (ethynylcopper), CuCMe 3 (methylacetylidecopper), (H 2 Câ•CMeCC)Cu (3-methyl-3-buten-1-ynylcopper), (MCH 2 CH 2 CC)Cu (1-pentynylcopper), CuCCPh, C 6 H 5 Cu (phenyl copper), (ME) 3 CCCCu (3,3-dimethyl-1-butynyl)copper, (H 3 CCHâ•CH) 2 CuLi, Me 3 SiCCCH 2 Cu, CuCN, [Cu(OAc)]n (where OAc=acetate), Cu 2 Cl 2 (butadiene), Î¼-[(trimethylsilyl)methyl]copper, C 7 H 7 CuO(2-methoxyphenylcopper), ([COD]CuCl) 2 , (MeCN) 4 CuX (where X=a halide, an alkyl, an amine, or a phenyl group), Me 3 SiOCu(PMe 3 ) 3 , Cu(C 4 H 4 S), and a Cu-carbene compound, and wherein the iodine precursor is selected from the group consisting of an iodine gas, an iodine plasma, l 2 , C 2 H 5 l, C 2 H 3 1, CH 3 l, CH 2 12, and CHl 3 .