Growth of SiO 2 at Room Temperature with the Use of Catalyzed Sequential Half-Reactions

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Abstract
Films of silicon dioxide (SiO2) were deposited at room temperature by means of catalyzed binary reaction sequence chemistry. The binary reaction SiCl4 + 2H2O → SiO2 + 4HCl was separated into SiCl4 and H2O half-reactions, and the half-reactions were then performed in an ABAB … sequence and catalyzed with pyridine. The pyridine catalyst lowered the deposition temperature from >600 to 300 kelvin and reduced the reactant flux required for complete reactions from ∼109 to ∼104 Langmuirs. Growth rates of ∼2.1 angstroms per AB reaction cycle were obtained at room temperature for reactant pressures of 15 millitorr and 60-second exposure times with 200 millitorr of pyridine. This catalytic technique may be general and should facilitate the chemical vapor deposition of other oxide and nitride materials.