Metal bonding during sputter film deposition

We studied the bonding between two flat Si substrates with thin metal films. The bonding was accomplished during thin film sputter deposition on contamination free surfaces of metal films. In this work we used Ti and Pt. Successful bonding of these metal films (each having a thickness of 10-20 nm) occurred at room temperature over the entire bonded area (12 mm x 12 mm). Self-diffusion, particularly at grain boundaries and film surface, was the mechanism for bonding. Suitable metal bonding only occurred if the film surface roughness is sufficiently smaller than the self-diffusion length of metals. Particularly in the bonding of Ti to Ti films, transmission electron microscope observation revealed that complete crystalline grains had been formed across the former interface between the single thin Ti films. The interfaceless bonding can be explained by recrystallization of the Ti lattice due to the high self-diffusion coefficient of Ti. This technique would be applied to bonding of wafers to fabricate thin film devices or microsystems. Moreover, this bonding technology can be used with many different thin film materials and various semiconductor substrates. (C) 1998 American Vacuum Society. [S0734-2101(98)05004-0].