Deposition and characterization of c-axis oriented aluminum nitride films by radio frequency magnetron sputtering without external substrate heating

Mechanical and tribological properties of crystalline aluminum nitride coatings deposited on stainless steel by magnetron sputtering

“…There is hardly any detailed study reported on the growth of crystalline AlN coatings on steel substrate despite the fact that crystalline AlN coatings are more stable in liquid metals [21][22][23]. However, numerous works have been reported on the growth of crystalline AlN coatings on silicon substrate for electronic, optoelectronic and surface acoustic wave device applications [24][25][26]. Moreover, there is very little information available on the mechanical and tribological properties of AlN coatings grown on steel.…”

“…Formation of c-axis oriented wurtzite aluminum nitride coatings/films by DC/RF magnetron sputtering on silicon substrate has been widely reported by many authors [24][25][26]. However, limited literature is available on the deposition of cubic (zinc blende or rock salt) AlN coatings by magnetron sputtering.…”

Microstructure and surface morphology of thin AlN films formed on sapphire by dual magnetron sputtering

“…where k = 0.878 is the averaged constant calculated from the model X-ray diffraction pattern of finite-size AlN grains for the (002) and (103) peaks, λ = 0.1541744 nm is the X-ray wavelength, β is the full width at half maximum of the reflection in radians (2θ scale), and θ is the angle at which the diffraction peak is observed [16]. In calculations according to Eq.…”

A model for longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient measurement of the aluminum nitride thin films

“…Aluminum nitride (AlN), as one of the III-nitrides, has a wide bandgap, high acoustic velocity, high electrical resistivity, excellent piezoelectricity, good thermal and chemical stability as well as friendly compatibility with traditional IC fabrication process [1,2]. Due to these outstanding properties, AlN has been widely employed to manufacture electrodevices, such as energy harvesting devices [3,4], surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices [5][6][7], thin film bulk acoustic resonators (FBAR) [8,9], and Lamb wave devices [10], all of which have found their applications in power generation, signal processing and sensing.…”

“…AlN films can be fabricated by different techniques, such as metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) [8,11], molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) [12,13], pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [14,15], and reactive magnetron sputtering [6,16]. Among these techniques, the magnetron sputtering can produce AlN films in mass at a relatively low temperature compatible with the micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology [1]. Therefore, the magnetron sputtering has been widely utilized in the AlN piezoelectric thin film deposition.…”