A Study on the Properties of AlN Films Deposited with Nitrogen Ion Beam Assisted RF Magnetron Sputtering

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films were prepared by using nitrogen ion beam assisted reactive radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on the glass substrates without intentional substrate heating. After deposition, the effect of nitrogen ion beam energy on the structural and optical properties of AlN films were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM) and UV-Vis. spectrophotometer, respectively. AlN films deposited with ion irradiation at 100 eV show the higher (002) peak intensity in XRD pattern than other films. It means that ion energy of 100 eV is the favorable condition for low temperature crystallization. AFM images also show that surface average roughness is increased from 1.5 to 9.6 nm with ion energy in this study. In an optical observation, AlN films which deposited by ion beam energy of 100 eV show the higher transmittance than that of the films prepared with the other ion beam conditions.