Author(s)

Sami Znati¹, Nicholas Chedid¹, Houxun Miao¹, Lei Chen², Eric E. Bennett¹, Han Wen¹

¹Imaging Physics Laboratory, Biochemistry and Biophysics Center, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
²Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA.

Filling high-aspect-ratio trenches with gold is a frequent requirement in the fabrication of X-ray optics as well as micro-electronic components and other fabrication processes. Conformal electrodeposition of gold in sub-micron-width silicon trenches with an aspect ratio greater than 35 over a grating area of several square centimeters is challenging and has not been described in the literature previously. A comparison of pulsed plating and constant current plating led to a gold electroplating protocol that reliably filled trenches for such structures.

Pulsed Electroplating, Gold Electroplating, High Aspect Ratio Trenches, Gold Electrodepostion, Di-rect Current Electrodeposition, Pulsed vs. Direct Current Electroplating, Atomic Layer Deposition Platinum Seed Layer, Silicon Trench Gratings, Trench Filling, Grating Filling, ALD Adhesive Layer

Znati, S. , Chedid, N. , Miao, H. , Chen, L. , Bennett, E. and Wen, H. (2015) Electrodeposition of Gold to Conformally Fill High-Aspect-Ratio Nanometric Silicon Grating Trenches: A Comparison of Pulsed and Direct Current Protocols. Journal of Surface Engineered Materials and Advanced Technology, 5, 207-213. doi: 10.4236/jsemat.2015.54022.