Substrate Temperature Dependent Properties of Sputtered AlN:Er Thin Film for In-Situ Luminescence Sensing of Al/AlN Multilayer Coating Health

Abstract

The integrity and reliability of surface protective coatings deposited on metal surface could be in-situ monitored via the attractive luminescence sensing technique. In this paper, we report the influence of substrate temperature on the properties of erbium (Er) doped aluminum nitride (AlN) film, which could be applied as a luminescent layer for monitoring the health of multilayered Al/AlN coating. The AlN:Er films were deposited via reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering, and the silicon substrate temperature was varied from non-intentional heating up to 400 °C. The composition, morphology, crystalline structure, and dielectric function of the AlN:Er films deposited under these different substrate temperature conditions were studied. These properties of the AlN:Er films show strong correlation with the substrate temperature maintained during film fabrication. The obtained AlN:Er films, without further annealing, exhibited photoluminescence peaks of the Er3+ ions in the visible wavelength range and the strongest photoluminescence intensity was observed for the AlN:Er film deposited with the temperature of substrate kept at 300 °C. The results demonstrated in this work offer guidance to optimize the substrate temperature for the deposition of AlN:Er film for future application of this sensing technique to thin metal components.

Amorphous carbon nitride dual-function anti-reflection coating for crystalline silicon solar cells

“…In this case, we assumed that the grain growth contribution at a high substrate temperature would dominate the structure evolution. These results are in good agreement with those previously reported on the effect of substrate temperature on the roughness parameters for the reactive sputtered nitride films 49 , 55 .…”

“…Generally, the driving force for grain growth is the promoted surface diffusion of the adatoms at a higher substrate temperature 49 , 50 . However, a different trend was observed in the current study, which might be attributed to a mechanism associated with the reactive sputtering of carbon nitride.…”

Impact of Deposition Temperature on Crystal Structure and Ferroelectric Properties of (Al1−xScx)N Films Prepared by Sputtering Method

“…A decrease in orientation perfection due to the decrease in deposition temperature was also reported by Iriarte et al for sputter‐deposited AlN films. [ 19 ] A decrease in the (001) out‐of‐plane orientation was also reported for erbium (Er)‐doped AlN films by Fang et al [ 28 ] Those authors claimed that a decrease in the kinetic energy of the sputtered adatoms at low temperature decreases the (001) preferred orientation.…”

Chemical Composition, Structure, and Physical Properties of AlN Films Produced via Pulsed DC Reactive Magnetron Sputtering

“…A characteristic decrease in the oxygen concentration from the film surface towards the substrate was observed in most publications regarding film depth profile analysis [28,29,32]. This profile is most likely due to the oxidation of the films as a result of their removal from the vacuum chamber, and further storage of samples in the air, where a hydrolysis reaction can occur in a moist atmosphere [32]. The authors of [30] claimed that oxygen in small concentrations (about 0.75 at.…”

“…The problem of oxygen's location and inclusion mechanism in AlN films has been considered in previous publications [28][29][30][31], but this question is still important [32][33][34]. Some possible mechanisms of oxygen inclusion in AlN films were proposed earlier.…”