Fabrication of Cu-encapsulated carbon nanotube inductors

Abstract

This work reports a top-down fabrication method to pattern and form carbon nanotube(CNT) interconnects with Cu encapsulation. The fabrication process includes 3 conventional semiconductor processes, which are photolithography, stencil print, and electroplating. Using this method, we fabricated spiral Cu-encapsulated CNT inductors for RF ICs. We measured the inductance of 0.55nH, the quality(Q-) factor of 66 at 8.5GHz from the rectangular type, and the inductance of 0.6nH, the Q-factor of 55 at 8.4GHz from the circular type. These measurement values exceed the inductance and Q-factor of conventional Cu line inductors of which a conventional simulator, HFSS, is used to verify the performance.