The effect of surface roughness on the resistivity increase in nanometric dimensions

TY - JOUR

T1 - The effect of surface roughness on the resistivity increase in nanometric dimensions

AU - Marom, H.

AU - Eizenberg, M.

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the “Magnet” program of the Chief Scientist Office at the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade, Consortium of Emerging Dielectric and Conductor Technologies for the Semiconductor Industry. One of the authors (H.M.) acknowledges the support of the Israel Ministry of Science Eshkol grant. The authors also wish to thank M. Ritterband for her contribution in the early stages of this work and Y. Mozes for his technical help.

PY - 2006

Y1 - 2006

N2 - Materials with nanometric dimensions exhibit higher electrical resistivity due to additional scattering centers for the conduction electrons, mainly from surfaces and grain boundaries. In this study we focus on the effect of surfaces by implementing an experimental technique in which the resistivity of thin films is measured during and after etching them inside a solution. This technique enables to analyze the contribution of surfaces to the resistivity and gives a unique insight as for the effect of surface roughness. It is shown that the scattering of electrons from annealed copper films with smooth enough surfaces is mostly specular and that the resistivity in this case is dominated by the effect of grain boundaries. However, when the roughness of the surface becomes larger than the de Broglie wavelength of the electrons, a substantial increase in resistivity occurs. This roughness-induced resistivity is analyzed and shown to be much larger in certain cases than the resistivity predicted for a flat surface, even when all electron scatterings are assumed to be completely diffused.

AB - Materials with nanometric dimensions exhibit higher electrical resistivity due to additional scattering centers for the conduction electrons, mainly from surfaces and grain boundaries. In this study we focus on the effect of surfaces by implementing an experimental technique in which the resistivity of thin films is measured during and after etching them inside a solution. This technique enables to analyze the contribution of surfaces to the resistivity and gives a unique insight as for the effect of surface roughness. It is shown that the scattering of electrons from annealed copper films with smooth enough surfaces is mostly specular and that the resistivity in this case is dominated by the effect of grain boundaries. However, when the roughness of the surface becomes larger than the de Broglie wavelength of the electrons, a substantial increase in resistivity occurs. This roughness-induced resistivity is analyzed and shown to be much larger in certain cases than the resistivity predicted for a flat surface, even when all electron scatterings are assumed to be completely diffused.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33745683332&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1063/1.2204349

DO - 10.1063/1.2204349

M3 - 文章

AN - SCOPUS:33745683332

SN - 0021-8979

VL - 99

JO - Journal of Applied Physics

JF - Journal of Applied Physics

IS - 12

M1 - 123705

ER -