Skip to main content
Colloquium | Materials Science

Chemical Selectivity in Surface Deposition Reactions

Materials Science Colloquium

Abstract: Selectivity in chemical reactions, where one product is formed and a similar product is suppressed, is a long-standing challenge in reaction engineering. Catalytic reactions, for example, quantify selectivity in terms of the rate of formation of a desired product relative to that for an undesired product. In the field of nanoscale electronic devices, the need for localized material placement and lateral position control is now reaching the point where long-standing physical patterning tools (e.g., photolithography) need to be augmented by new purely chemical patterning methods. Chemical patterning proceeds via area-selective deposition, where a chemical product (e.g., a thin film) forms on one part of a patterned surface, but not on other parts of the same surface. To meet the demands for defect-free electronic devices, the stringency for selective deposition is much more intense than the selectivity used in typical catalysis or other chemical systems.

In this presentation, I will describe the basic surface chemistry of selective reactions in vapor/surface atomic layer deposition and atomic layer etching and show how we are using these tools to push the boundaries of selectivity in surface chemical reactions, including the use of new materials, such as metal-organic framework thin films.

Bio: Gregory Parsons is Celanese Acetate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. He received a bachelor’s degree in physics from the State University of New York and a Ph.D. in physics at North Carolina State University.