Measurement of intrinsic stresses during growth of aluminum nitride thin films by reactive sputter deposition

Abstract

Real-time measurements of intrinsic stresses during growth of polycrystalline and epitaxial aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films on Si(111) are reported. Our room-temperature measurements on polycrystalline films corroborate previous post-growth measurements. Our high-temperature measurements provide evidence of large intrinsic stresses during epitaxial growth of AlN on Si(111) and insignificant stress relaxation during growth.

Structural characteristics of AlN films deposited by pulsed laser deposition and reactive magnetron sputtering: A comparative study

“…AlN has been deposited by several techniques such as metalorganic chemical vapor deposition ͑MOCVD͒, 2 plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy ͑MBE͒, 3 pulsed laser deposition ͑PLD͒, [4][5][6][7][8] and reactive magnetron sputtering ͑RMS͒. [9][10][11][12] Among these techniques, PLD is cited in the literature 13 to have an advantage over others owing to stoichiometric reproduction of the target composition in the films, higher energy ͑5-10 eV͒ of the ablated species and higher partial pressures of reactive gases ͑Ͼ10 mTorr͒ that can be maintained to attain the desired composition. However, presence of particulates of the target material in the laser generated plume and limited size of the substrate for uniform deposition are challenges to be met.…”

Characterization of polycrystalline AlN films using variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry

“…The correlations between sputtering conditions-pressure, power, substrate temperature, gas ratio, and substrate materials-and piezoelectric properties of AlN films, have been extensively studied and the underlying physics are well understood. [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] …”

Magnetron Sputtering of Aluminium Nitride Thin Films for Thermal Management

“…Well crystallised AlN thin films have been synthesized by several methods including: molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD) 7. But all of these methods require high substrate temperature (>1 000 K), which is generally not compatible with microelectronics device fabrication process.…”

“…The literature reports on synthesis of well crystallized thin films at low temperature using different techniques such as DC magnetron,8–11 pulsed DC magnetron,12–14 radio frequency magnetron sputtering15–17 or pulsed laser deposition 18…”