Evidence of heteroepitaxial growth of copper on beta-tantalum

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Abstract
Crystallographic orientations between thin-sputtered Cu film and β-Ta adhesion layer have been studied using high resolution electron microscopy and electron diffraction. Tetragonal β-Ta deposited on SiO2 has a strong texture with its closest packed plane (002) parallel to the film surface. On (002) β-Ta, the growth of (111) Cu is preferred. Even though more than 100 β-Ta grains are found under a single Cu grain, the Ta grains under a Cu grain have long range in-plane texture with [330] direction aligned parallel to the [220] direction of Cu. This orientational coincidence is explained by the heteroepitaxial relationship between the hexagonal close-packed atomic array in Cu (111) plane and the pseudohexagonal configuration of β-Ta atoms in (002) plane with a misfit strain of 7.6%.