Fabrication of w-AlN Thin Films using Tilted Sputter Target and Unrotated Substrate Holder

Abstract

Aluminium nitride (AlN) thin film is deposited by RF magnetron sputtering using Al sputtering target at room temperature. The sputter source was tilted 45° and the substrate holder was unrotated. The deposited AlN films were in the thickness range between 200 to 280 nm. The structural, elemental composition, morphological and topological properties of AlN with different thickness has been investigated. XRD analysis results revealed that all the AlN films deposited crystallize in hexagonal wurtzite phase (w-AlN). The crystal orientation of AlN (002) plane start to appear when the thickness of the AlN film increases and the thickest AlN film has a highest peak intensity of (002) plane with smallest FWHM indicated a good crystal quality of c-axis structure. The chemical composition of AlN analyze using EDS shows that all the films have AlN composition nearest to the stoichiometric and have a rice-like morphology regardless of the film thickness. The AFM analysis revealed that the surface roughness of the AlN films is increases along with the grain size as the thickness of the AlN films increased.