Dielectric studies of some oxide materials, nitride ceramics and glasses

Abstract

This thesis is primarily concerned with the evaluation and comparison of the dielectric behaviour of materials which may find application as substrates in microelectronic high-performance packaging. In the introductory chapter the factors governing the choice of the most suitable dielectric substrate for compatibility with silicon technology are reviewed; it is shown that in addition to good dielectric properties the thermal conductivity is important if high power packages are required together with the ability to obtain good matching of thermal expansion coefficients. This is followed by a survey of the present theories of dielectric behaviour with special emphasis on the Universal law of dielectric response and its applicability to oxide and glass ceramics which exhibit hopping conductivity. The experimental methods for the measurement of dielectric parameters are outlined in Chapter 3 which includes an account of techniques developed for studying materials only available as powders. The three substrate systems studied were aluminium oxide, aluminium nitride and glass-on-molybdenum and in the case of the two former materials a range of both pure and impure specimens were examined both in single crystal and sintered polycrystalline form. The detailed experimental results are presented and discussed in the three succeeding chapters for each of the materials in turn; these results include the values of permittivity and dielectric loss, measured over a frequency range of 5 x 10(^2) Hz to 1 x 10(^7) Hz, the temperature variation of permittivity both in the low temperature (85K to 293k) and high temperature (20ºC to about 600ºC) regions and the d.c. and a.c. conductivity in the high temperature range. In their pure form each of these materials would be suitable as a substrate, having permittivities at room temperature of ϵ ' (_s) = 10.2 for polycrystalline Al(_2)(^0)(_3), ϵ' (_s) = 9.2 for polycrystalline AlN (which has a thermal conductivity of about one-hundred times that of alumina) and ϵ' (_s) - 6.5 for glass-on-molybdenum and dielectric losses in the region of tan δ - 10(^-3). The effect of impurities is shown to be very significant leading in all cases to some increase in permittivity and a much larger increase in dielectric loss. The measurements made on powders are given and discussed in Chapter 7. In the studies on the powders used as starting materials for the manufacture of substrates it was shown that by making measurements at low temperature (77K) the effects of intergranular space charge polarization could be overcome yielding information valuable for quality control of impurity content; measurements made on powders of some high temperature oxide superconducting materials are also given. The final chapter, Chapter 8, summarises the overall conclusions of the research and makes some suggestions for future work.