The evolution of growth stresses in chemical vapor deposited tungsten films studied by in situ wafer curvature measurements

An in situ study of the evolution of the biaxial state of intrinsic stress during nucleation and growth of polycrystalline tungsten chemical vapor deposition films deposited by the hydrogen reduction of tungsten hexafluoride is presented. The evolution of biaxial stress was determined from in situ wafer curvature measurements. It is shown that the intrinsic stress is a growth stress, i.e., a stress developing in close vicinity to the advancing surface of the film due to metastable film growth processes. The stress developing depends strongly on the thickness of the film. High tensile stress (≊4 GPa) is observed during the initial stage of growth, compressive stress (up to −1 GPa) is observed in an intermediate thickness regime after film closure and tensile stress (0.1–1 GPa) is observed in the thick film regime. The associated stress gradients in the film are preserved during and after growth. The development of growth stress is determined by deposition temperature and growth rate. The tensile stress in the thick film regime is larger at a higher growth rate or a lower deposition temperature, while the compressive stress in the intermediate thickness regime showed the opposite dependency. Film properties as the evolution of grain size, impurity content, and resistivity are found not to vary significantly with the growth conditions. Therefore, the development of growth stress is ascribed to kinetical processes. The development of tensile stress in the thick film regime is described with a (kinetic) grain boundary formation and relaxation model. The compressive stress in the intermediate thickness regime is tentatively ascribed to compressive coherency strains induced by interfacial tensions of the grains in the stage of island growth.