Copper Large-Scale Grain Growth by UV Nanosecond Pulsed Laser Annealing

UV nanosecond pulsed laser annealing (UV NLA) enables both surface-localized heating and short timescale high temperature processing, which can be advantageous to reduce metal line resistance by enlarging metal grains in lines or in thin films, while maintaining the integrity and performance of surrounding structures. In this work UV NLA is applied on a typical Cu thin film, demonstrating a mean grain size of over 1 μm and 400 nm in a melt and sub-melt regime, respectively. Along with such grain enlargement, film resistivity is also reduced.