Smoothing of Polycrystalline AlN Thin Films with Argon Cluster Ions

Nikolaev, I. V.; Korobeishchikov, N. G.; Roenko, M. A.; Geydt, Pavel; Strunin, V. I.

doi:10.1134/s1063785021030275

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…At an energy E/N of several eV/atom in a cluster, the bulk of the initial kinetic energy E is carried away by scattered cluster atoms, and the sputtering yield decreases by almost three orders of magnitude (to 0.001), i.e., only 1 target atom is ejected for every 1000 low-energy cluster atoms [45]. Based on our results presented in [42,44,45], the lowenergy regime (E/N = 10 eV/atom, where the kinetic energy of clusters E = 10 keV and their average size N = 1000 atom/cluster) was chosen for processing the AlN thin films. The average beam current density was ≈0.45 µA/cm 2 , and the dose of irradiation with argon cluster ions was ≈2.75 × 10 16 cm −2 .…”

Section: Deposition Technique and Cluster Treatment Setupmentioning

confidence: 56%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Previously, we investigated the influence of cluster ion bombardment on the topography of AlN films on the glass-ceramics substrate in the different treatment modes [42]. In our work [42], we showed that cluster ions effectively decrease the surface roughness of an aluminum nitride film to the subnanometer level at etching depths of only tens of nanometers. This work aimed to comprehensively study the effect of cluster treatment on the surface morphology and structure of samples of polycrystalline thin films of AlN deposited on various substrates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Cluster ions can be used to effectively modify the surfaces of various materials due to the collective interaction of hundreds or thousands of weakly bound cluster atoms with target atoms [33]. With the help of cluster ion processing, it is possible to etch and smooth the surface to a subnanometer roughness level [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43], while cluster ions, as a rule, damage the subsurface layer with a depth of only a few nanometers [36], without changing the bulk structure of the material. To the best of our knowledge, the change in the morphology of AlN films after treatment with gas cluster ions has not previously been investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Influence of Argon Cluster Ion Bombardment on the Characteristics of AlN Films on Glass-Ceramics and Si Substrates

et al. 2022

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In this paper, the influence of surface modification on the characteristics and properties of AlN thin films on Si and glass-ceramics substrates is investigated. The surface modification was made at various parameters of argon cluster ions. By using XRD and Raman spectroscopy, it was shown that the obtained AlN films have a hexagonal structure with a characteristic direction of texturing along the c axis and slight deviations from it. A comparison of the AlN surface morphology obtained by atomic force microscopy before and after cluster processing was demonstrated. This demonstrated that the cluster ions with low energy per atom (E/N = 10 eV/atom) have a high efficiency of surface smoothing. A decrease in the intensity of the Raman peaks and an increase in their full-width after bombardment with cluster ions were found, which may be caused by a change in the physicochemical state of the surface. The optical properties, the quality of the boundaries, and the distribution map of the thickness of the functional layer of AlN were investigated by the methods of spectral and spatial resolution ellipsometry. By using the cross-sectional SEM, the direction of crystallite texturing was demonstrated. The influence of argon cluster ion bombardment on the stoichiometry of samples was analyzed by EDX spectroscopy. The results obtained demonstrate the efficiency of the cluster ion smoothing of polycrystalline thin films for microelectronics, particularly when creating surface acoustic wave resonators.

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