Low temperature bonding of heterogeneous materials using Al2O3 as an intermediate layer

Direct wafer bonding is a key enabling technology for many current and emerging photonic devices. Most prior work on direct wafer bonding has, however, focused on the Si platform for fabrication of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). As a result, a universal bonding solution for heterogeneous material systems has not yet been developed.

This has been a roadblock in the realization of novel devices which need the integration of new semiconductor platforms such as III-V on Si, Ge on Sapphire, LiNbO3 on GaAs etc. The large thermal expansion coefficient mismatch in the hetero-material systems limits the annealing to low temperatures to avoid stressed films.

This work explores the use of Al2O3 as an intermediate layer for bonding heterogeneous materials. The key to achieve a stronger bond is to maximize the hydroxyl group density of the bonding interfaces. The use of Al2O3 helps achieve that, since it has a high hydroxyl group density (around 18 OH/nm2 at RT) which is approximately 4 times that of a Si surface.

This work optimizes the bonding process using Al2O3 by studying the contribution of Al2O3 deposition parameters. An optimized process is presented and applied to bond GaAs on Sapphire and InP on SiO2/Si.