Effect of nitrogen plasma treatment on the characteristics of AlN thin films

Aluminium nitride (AlN) thin films were deposited on silicon (100) wafers by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering. AlN films are less dense and have a higher dangling bonds percentage than single crystals. In addition, the surface of as-deposited film is too rough to apply to electronic dev...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Electrochemical Society 2000-09, Vol.147 (9), p.3535-3540
Main Authors: CHO, Min-Hee, KANG, Youn-Seon, KIM, Hae-Yeol, LEE, Paul S, LEE, Jai-Young
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science
rheology
Deposition by sputtering
Exact sciences and technology
Materials science
Methods of deposition of films and coatings
film growth and epitaxy
Physics
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Aluminium nitride (AlN) thin films were deposited on silicon (100) wafers by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering. AlN films are less dense and have a higher dangling bonds percentage than single crystals. In addition, the surface of as-deposited film is too rough to apply to electronic devices. In order to overcome these limitations, nitrogen plasma treatment (NPT) was used for the first time. As NPT time increased, surface roughness was dramatically reduced and, at the same time, the Al-N bonds in the films became stable. As a result, chemical stability of nitrogen-plasma-treated AlN films increased sharply in a strongly alkaline solution, 2 M KOH. Furthermore, the interactions between the films and nitrogen plasma resulted in the improvement of electrical properties of the films, i.e., the leakage current density measured by I-V method was reduced. 18 refs.
ISSN:0013-4651
1945-7111
DOI:10.1149/1.1393933