Oxygen Control on Nanocrystal-AlON Films by Reactive Gas-Timing Technique R.F. Magnetron Sputtering and Annealing Effect

Abstract

The AlON films grown on Si(100) substrates by using radio frequency (r.f.) magnetron sputtering from high purity aluminum (99.999% Al) target with a novel reactive gas-timing technique. The 100 nm thick of AlON films were deposited with 200 watts r.f. power and the substrate temperature is maintained at room temperature by the technique of gas-timing which varying flow-in sequence of high purity of Ar (99.999%) and N2 (99.9999%) gases fed into the sputtering chamber at 10:90 (sec) ratio. The composition and crystal orientation of AlON films affected by gas-timing of Ar and N2 were analyzed by Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The oxygen atoms revealed by AES formed into a corporation in films was studied. This suggests that the oxygen contamination formed as AlOXNY compound may due to the residual oxygen in base pressure of 10-7 mbar and higher reactivity of oxygen in the reactor compared to nitrogen. The gas-timing technique used in the sputtering growth system shows the advantage of the oxygen quantity control, while the general sputtering process (without gas-timing technique) shows an increase of the oxygen composition depended on film thickness. The characterizations results clearly indicate that the gas-timing r.f. magnetron sputtering technique plays an important role to control the incorporation of oxygen and to form the nanocrystal-aluminum oxynitride films which very attractive for various sensors applications.