For many decades, dry processing techniques, such as physical vapor deposition (PVD), have played a dominant role in integrated circuit metallization processes. During microelectronic device fabrication, films are often deposited on non-planar surfaces. The surface topography that wafers exhibit at various steps in the fabrication process arise from patterned features related to, for example, trenches andor vias. Film deposition through PVD on such wafers can suffer rom shadowing effects, causing poor step coverage on sidewalls and bottoms of trenches and vias, and overhanging structures formed at the top corners of trenches and vias. This invention presents the use of an oblique angle physical vapor deposition (OAPVD) technique to obtain conformal thin films with enhanced step coverage on patterned surfaces such as trenches and vias. OAPVD combines a conventional PVD system with a tilted and rotating substrate. The substrate tilt angle (deposition angle) is chosen such that the particles obliquely incident on the patterned substrate can uniformly reach the sidewalls and bottom corners of the trenchesvias. The substrate rotation allows the uniform coating of all the trenchesvias on the substrate. By OAPVD, 1) films can be deposited in a conformal way with enhanced step coverage avoiding overhangs and voids; 2) the conformal coating can provide the complete void-free filling of the trenchvia by a single deposition step. The required tilt angles for coating of trenches and vias by OAPVD are typically small that makes the invention applicable to many of the PVD systems. Additional technical features such as the in-situ control of the deposition angle, the application of an electrical bias to the substrate, and ionization of the incident flux can further increase the step coverage efficiency of the OAPVD technique.