中國有色金屬學報(英文版)
Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China
| Vol. 24 No. 9 September 2014 |
（1. School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China;
2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China;
3. State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China）
Abstract:Wurtzite aluminum nitride (AlN) films were deposited on Si(100) wafers under various sputtering pressures by radio-frequency (RF) reactive magnetron sputtering. The film properties were investigated by XRD, SEM, AFM, XPS and nanoindenter techniques. It is suggested from the XRD patterns that highly c-axis oriented films grow preferentially at low pressures and the growth of (100) planes are preferred at higher pressures. The SEM and AFM images both reveal that the deposition rate and the surface roughness decrease while the average grain size increases with increasing the sputtering pressure. XPS results show that lowering the sputtering pressure is a useful way to minimize the incorporation of oxygen atoms into the AlN films and hence a film with closer stoichiometric composition is obtained. From the measurement of nanomechanical properties of AlN thin films, the largest hardness and elastic modulus are obtained at 0.30 Pa.
Key words: AlN thin film; reactive magnetron sputtering; preferred orientation; nanomechanical properties
