Conformal doping via plasma activated atomic layer deposition and conformal film deposition

A method of doping a patterned substrate in a reaction chamber, the method comprising:

• forming an alloy comprising a dielectric and a dopant source directly on a surface of the patterned substrate having three-dimensional features, or onto a material adhered to the surface, the dopant source comprising a dopant, wherein forming the alloy comprises:
• introducing a dopant precursor and a dielectric precursor into the reaction chamber, and coadsorbing the dopant precursor and the dielectric precursor onto the substrate or onto a material adhered to the substrate under conditions whereby the dopant precursor and the dielectric precursor form an adsorption-limited layer;
• and
• reacting the adsorbed dopant precursor and adsorbed dielectric precursor to form the dopant source and alloy having the dopant source;
• and
• driving some of the dopant from the alloy into the substrate to form a conformal doping profile in the substrate.

An apparatus for doping a substrate, the apparatus comprising:

• a reaction chamber;
• a substrate holder within the reaction chamber;
• one or more gas inlets coupled to the reaction chamber;
• one or more vacuum pumps;
• one or more gas outlets coupling the reaction chamber to the one or more vacuum pumps;
• and
• a controller comprising machine readable instructions, the instructions comprising:
• instructions for forming a first conformal film layer comprising:
• (a) instructions for operating the one or more gas inlets to introduce dopant precursor into the reaction chamber so that the dopant precursor adsorbs onto the substrate or onto a material adhered to the substrate;
• (b) instructions for operating the one or more gas outlets to evacuate unadsorbed dopant precursor from the reaction chamber;
• and
• (c) instructions for reacting the adsorbed dopant precursor to form a film layer containing a dopant source;
• instructions for forming a second conformal film layer to be executed after executing the instructions for forming the first conformal film layer, the instructions comprising:
• (a)-(c);
• instructions for forming a third conformal film layer to be executed after the instructions for forming the second conformal film layer, the instructions comprising:
• (i) instructions for operating the one or more gas inlets to introduce a dielectric precursor into the reaction chamber so that the dielectric precursor adsorbs onto a material adhered to the substrate;
• (ii) instructions for operating the one or more gas outlets to evacuate unadsorbed dielectric precursor from the reaction chamber;
• and
• (iii) instructions for reacting the adsorbed dielectric precursor to form a film layer containing the dielectric material;
• instructions for forming a fourth conformal film layer to be executed after the instructions for forming the third conformal film layer, the instructions comprising:
• (i)-(iii).