Influence of N2/H2 and N2 plasma on binary III-nitride films prepared by hollow-cathode plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition

The authors reported the hollow-cathode plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition of AlN, GaN, and InN films using N2-only and N2/H2 plasma. In this study, the authors analyzed the effect of plasma gas composition on the properties of deposited binary III-nitride thin films. Toward this goal, AlN, GaN, and InN films were deposited on Si (100) substrates using N2-only (50 sccm), as well as N2/H2 (50 + 50, 50 + 25 sccm) plasma to investigate the impact of H2 flow. Grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD) patterns of AlN and GaN thin films deposited with N2/H2 plasma remained almost unchanged when H2 flow decreased from 50 to 25 sccm. On the other hand, the use of N2 plasma without any H2 resulted in amorphous GaN thin films with significant carbon impurity within the bulk film. In the case of AlN, similar behavior was observed as the crystal structure is significantly altered to amorphouslike material. Thicknesses of AlN and GaN thin films increased tremendously when N2-only was used as the plasma gas. Fur...