Effect of pH and Ion Concentration on Wetting of Nanoholes and Water Structuring

Abstract

In advanced semiconductor manufacturing, with deep contact holes with an aspect ratio higher than sixty in 3D-NAND memory, higher aspect ratio patterning is one of the important issues in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. In this work, we used an in-situ ATR-FTIR spectroscopy technique to characterize the wetting of nanostructures embedded in a silica matrix by UPW and electrolyte solutions as a function of pH. There was little influence of pH on the wetting of nanoholes in the studied range of 1 to 4, but wetting seemed to be less close to the isoelectric point. Also, HCl seemed to lend a better wetting compared to HI, in opposition to their structure breaking effect according to Marcus. A correlation was observed between these observations and the CO2 solubility, indicative of the influence of water structuring. © 2022 ECS - The Electrochemical Society.