Deposition pressure effect on chemical, morphological and optical properties of binary Al-nitrides

Jaime Andrés Pérez Taborda(a, b), J.C. Caicedo(c), M. Grisales(d), W. Saldarriaga(e), H. Riascos(a)

(a) Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, Grupo Plasma Láser y Aplicaciones, Colombia
(b) Functional Nanoscale Devices for Energy Recovery Group, Institute of Microelectronics of Madrid, Spain
(c) Tribology, Powder Metallurgy and Processing of Solid Recycled Research Group, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia
(d) Universidad De la Amazonia, Colombia
(e) Laboratorio de Materiales Cerámicos y Vítreos, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Medellín, A.A. 568, Medellín, Colombia

Aluminum nitride films (AlN) were produced by Nd:YAG pulsed laser (PLD), with repetition rate of 10 Hz. The laser interaction on Al target under nitrogen gas atmosphere generates plasma which is produced at room temperature with variation in the pressure work from 0.39 Pa to 1.5 Pa thus producing different AlN films. In this sense the dependency of optical properties with the pressure of deposition was studied. The plasma generated at different pressures was characterized by optical emission spectroscopy (OES). Additionally ionic and atomic species from the emission spectra obtained were observed. The plume electronic temperature has been determined by assuming a local thermodynamic equilibrium of the emitting species. Finally the electronic temperature was calculated with Boltzmann plot from relative intensities of spectral lines. The morphology and composition of the films were studied using atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis (XPS) and Raman Spectroscopy. The optical reflectance spectra and color coordinates of the films were obtained by optical spectral reflectometry technique in the range from 400 nm to 900 nm. A clear dependence in morphological properties and optical properties, as a function of the applied deposition pressure, was found in this work which offers a novel application in optoelectronic industry.

Link to the paper: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1QMoQ_iF9Rsdz