Tania Sandoval

Affiliation: Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María

Country: Chile

Workshop: Current Applications of Computational Chemistry

Title: Mechanistic studies of area-selective deposition processes: the role of precursor and inhibitor in selectivity.

Abstract

Area selective deposition (ASD) is a bottom up nanofabrication technique that allows direct deposition on target surfaces. The use of small molecule inhibitors (SMIs) has emerged for the past few years as the state of the art in the field, due to their potential for integration in high volume manufacturing processes. SMIs selectively adsorb areas where no growth is desired and prevent adsorption of the film through a combination of chemical passivation and steric shielding. In this presentation, we will cover the fundamental aspects of the ASD cycle, the thermodynamics and kinetics of surface and interface interactions that drive this process. Moreover, we will highlight the different computational methods that are used to carry out this research with their limitations in terms of size and accuracy.

Bio

Dr. Sandoval is an associate professor in Chemical Engineering at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (UTFSM) in Chile. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 2014 and 2018 respectively.

Her research interests expand from mechanistic studies of small molecules adsorption to their influence in thin film deposition processes using atomic-scale simulations. Her latest work looked at precursor chemistry for atomic layer deposition (ALD), selective adsorption of inhibitor molecules, inhibition of semiconductor, oxides, and metals, as well as mechanisms for selectivity loss in area-selective ALD. She has received several funding grants from ANID (currently FONDECYT regular #1231197 and Anillo ACT210059), as well as funding from industrial partners (Intel and Lam Research), and works in close collaboration with leading experimental groups in thin film deposition.

In addition, she is an active member of the scientific community as she was the vice-president of the VII Conference of Nanotechnology organized in Chile in 2023 (> 300 attendees), she is a member of the scientific committee for the AVS International Conference on ALD, and currently serves as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology.