Designing and Fabricating Coatings with Targeted Tunable Electrical Properties via ALD: Al2O3/ZnO and Nb2O5/Ta2O5

The design of thin films for optimal electrical properties remains a significant challenge for material science: as films become thinner, minute variations in the film properties have profound and significant impact on the electrical characteristics. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) has outstanding potential for fine tuning the stoichiometry of multi-component materials, without the associated hardware or process complications of traditional thin film deposition methods (i.e. multiple targets, precursor dosage, flow/pressure effects, etc.). As ALD is insensitive to the preceding process considerations, the technique allows for a comparatively easy method for the deposition of mixed materials in order to achieve a specific material design. Moreover, the conformity, compositional uniformity, and tunability criteria required in this application makes ALD a strong candidate to be the deposition technique of choice