Compositional effects on the growth of Mg(M)O films

Abstract

The influence of the composition on the crystallographic properties of deposited Mg(M)O (with M=Al, Cr, Ti, Y, and Zr) films is studied. For a flexible control of the composition, dual reactive magnetron sputtering was used as deposition technique. Two different approaches to predict the composition are discussed. The first is an experimental way based on the simple relationship between the deposition rate and the target-substrate distance. The second is a route using a Monte Carlo based particle trajectory code. Both methods require a minimal experimental input and enable the user to quickly predict the composition of complex thin films. Good control and flexibility allow us to study the compositional effects on the growth of Mg(M)O films. Pure MgO thin films were grown with a (111) preferential out-of-plane orientation. When adding M to MgO, two trends were noticed. The first trend is a change in the MgO lattice parameters compared to pure MgO. The second tendency is a decrease in the crystallinity of the MgO phase. The experimentally determined crystallographic properties are shown to be in correspondence with the predicted properties from molecular dynamics simulations

Synthesis of Doped and non-Doped Nano MgO Ceramic Membranes

“…In general, the MgO structure was determined under thermodynamic conditions, the increase of doping percent can decrease the mobility of adatoms (ZnO atoms) within the structure. So, the structure became kinetically not thermodynamically determined (Saraiva et al, 2010). This result was confirmed by the increase in the MgO peak broadness given in XRD results.…”

“…The decrease in particle size means a decrease in the crystalline behavior of the cubic MgO by incorporating ZnO. This result was explained as follows: since the ionic radius of Zn 2+ (0.083) nm is similar to that of Mg 2+ (0.078) nm, the position of Mg 2+ can be occupied by Zn 2+ (Huang et al, 2008;Saraiva et al, 2010). MgO structure is similar to the well-known NaCl structure.…”

“…MgO structure is similar to the well-known NaCl structure. The O 2-anions are in a cubic closest packing and the Mg 2+ cations fill all the octahedral sites (Saraiva et al, 2010). The increase in doping percent of ZnO indicated that the octahedral positions occupied by Mg 2+ ions were replaced by Zn 2+ ions and when the doping percent reached 50% the structure became unstable and a disappearance of MgO structure was observed (Saraiva et al, 2010).…”

“…The O 2-anions are in a cubic closest packing and the Mg 2+ cations fill all the octahedral sites (Saraiva et al, 2010). The increase in doping percent of ZnO indicated that the octahedral positions occupied by Mg 2+ ions were replaced by Zn 2+ ions and when the doping percent reached 50% the structure became unstable and a disappearance of MgO structure was observed (Saraiva et al, 2010). In general, the MgO structure was determined under thermodynamic conditions, the increase of doping percent can decrease the mobility of adatoms (ZnO atoms) within the structure.…”

Angular-resolved energy flux measurements of a dc- and HIPIMS-powered rotating cylindrical magnetron in reactive and non-reactive atmosphere

“…With the area of the racetrack region being 10 cm², the flux of ions per pulse towards the target surface is 1.5 x 10 14 ions/cm². Considering that the sputter yield of titanium oxide is 10 to 20 times lower than the one of metallic titanium, which is 0.67 [23] for these conditions, it is clear that no complete monolayer of the target surface (around 10 15 atoms/cm 2 , [24]) gets sputtered off during one HIPIMS pulse. Therefore, the target surface will remain oxidized during the pulse and hence this cannot explain the sharp increase of the current.…”