Continuous-Film Thickness Determination by AES of Cr Overlayers on Cu Surfaces

1989 ◽  
Vol 153 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Lefakis ◽  
P.S. Ho

AbstractThe characteristics of Cr coverage of Cu surfaces, including determination of tc, the minimum average film thickness required for formation of a continuous film, have been studied in-situ by Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES). Auger signal intensities of substrate and deposit were monitored during Cr film growth by vapor deposition in UHV. It was shown that substrate surface morphology (roughness) has a dominant effect on coverage rate and tc. Slower coverage rates and larger tc′s were effected by the presence of native oxides, substrate heating (to 330°C) and H2O-vapor rich (5×10−5 Torr) ambient during Cr deposition. Surface oxides seemed to affect more the coverage of a smooth than a rough surface. Conversely, substrate heating affected more the coverage of a rough surface. The combined effect of substrate heating and water vapor rich atmosphere was pronounced for both smooth and rough surface coverages. Some of the main factors controlling these effects are discussed.

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 29-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Zuiker ◽  
Dieter M. Gruen ◽  
Alan R. Krauss

The remarkable properties of diamond, including its hardness, chemical inertness, high thermal conductivity, low coefficient of friction, optical transparency, and semiconducting properties, have led to considerable research in the area of diamond thin-film deposition. Diamond films have been characterized ex situ by a large number of diagnostic techniques including Raman spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, SEM, and TEM. In situ diagnostics, which can provide information in real time as the film is growing, are less common.Laser-reflectance interferometry (LRI) has been used to monitor the growth of diamond films in situ. The technique involves measuring the intensity of a laser beam reflected from the substrate surface on which the film is growing. The reflected beam is the sum of beams reflected by the gas-diamond interface and the diamond-silicon interface. Oscillations in the reflectivity are observed as the film grows because of interference between the reflected beams. Each oscillation indicates an increase in film thickness of λ/2n, where λ is the laser wavelength and n is the index of refraction of the film. If the index of refraction of the film is known, the thickness and growth rate can be determined in situ. For LRI measurements with 632.8-nm-wavelength HeNe lasers, the index of refraction of diamond films has been found to be within 10% of the bulk diamond value of 2.4. Each oscillation therefore indicates an increase in film thickness of 0.13 μm.The reflectivity measured by LRI is also affected by scattering because of surface roughness.


2000 ◽  
Vol 648 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Oberhauser ◽  
M. Poppeller ◽  
R. Abermann

AbstractThe chemical and microstructural properties of a surface have a strong influence on the growth mode and the morphology of a film evaporated onto this interface. Changes in the growth stress of thin titanium films, measured in situ by a cantilever beam technique, evaporated under UHV-conditions are used to monitor the chemical and microstructural properties of a substrate surface. The starting substrate film used in this study was a quasi single-crystalline TiO2-film (d=50 nm) prepared by reactive evaporation of titanium in an oxygen atmosphere and subsequent annealing (20 min, 400°C). The Ti-growth stress on this substrate is compressive up to monolayer coverage and tensile at higher film thickness, which is interpreted to indicate a strong interaction between TiO2 and the arriving Ti atoms at the interface during monolayer formation and strained (tensile) layer epitaxy at higher film thickness. In a second series of experiments the TiO2-film was covered with Al-overlayers of varying thickness. Due to oxygen interdiffusion from the TiO2-film an amorphous Al-oxide layer is formed at the interface eliminating the high degree of order of the substrate TiO2-film. On this amorphous substrate the stress vs. thickness curve of the Ti-film, in terms of our stress model, is interpreted to indicate island formation and growth of a polycrystalline Ti-film. At Al-layer thicknesses above about 3 nm the Al-interface becomes metallic. The structure of this Al-surface depends on the film thickness and substrate temperature during its deposition. During deposition of the first Ti-monolayer on metallic Al a large incremental tensile stress (up to 45 GPa) is measured. The magnitude of this tensile stress is closely related to the surface microstructure of the Al substrate. The surface roughness deduced from the tensile interface stress is compared with the surface roughness measured by AFM.For comparison, analogous experiments were made with Al2O3/Al substrate bilayers. The results of these experiments qualitatively agree with those on the TiO2/Al-substrate. The general shape of the stress vs. thickness curve is comparable, however quantitative differences are interpreted to be due to differences in the structure and/or chemical composition of the substrate Al-film.


1995 ◽  
Vol 397 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Barth ◽  
J. Knobloch ◽  
P. Hess

ABSTRACTThe growth of high quality amorphous hydrogenated semiconductor films was explored with different in situ spectroscopic methods. Nucleation of ArF laser-induced CVD of a-Ge:H on different substrates was investigated by real time ellipsometry, whereas the F2 laser (157nm) deposition of a-Si:H was monitored by FTIR transmission spectroscopy. The ellipsometric studies reveal a significant influence of the substrate surface on the nucleation stage, which in fact determines the electronic and mechanical properties of the bulk material. Coalescence of initial clusters occurs at a thickness of 16 Å for atomically smooth hydrogen-terminated c-Si substrates, whereas on native oxide covered c-Si substrates the bulk volume void fractions are not reached until 35 Å film thickness. For the first time we present a series of IR transmission spectra with monolayer resolution of the initial growth of a-Si:H. Hereby the film thickness was measured simultaneously using a quartz crystal microbalance with corresponding sensitivity. The results give evidence for cluster formation with a coalescence radius of about 20 Å. Difference spectra calculated for layers at different depths with definite thickness reveal that the hydrogen-rich interface layer stays at the substrate surface and does not move with the surface of the growing film. The decrease of the Urbach energy switching from native oxide to H-terminated substrates suggests a strong influence of the interface morphology on the bulk material quality.


2014 ◽  
Vol 592-594 ◽  
pp. 1371-1375
Author(s):  
Nitesh Talekar ◽  
Punit Kumar

Consideration of surface roughness in steady state EHL line contact is the first step towards understanding the lubrication of rough surface problem. Current paper investigates the use of sinusoidal waviness in the contact; more precisely it gives performance of real fluid in EHL line contact. The effect of various parameters like rolling velocity (U) and maximum Hertzian pressure (ph) on surface roughness by using properties of linear and exponential piezo-viscosity is taken into consideration to evaluate behavior of pressure distribution of load carrying fluid film and film thickness. Full isothermal, Newtonian simulation of EHL problem gives described effects. Spiking or fluctuation of pressure and film thickness curves is expected to show presence of irregularities on the surface chosen and amount of fluctuation depends on certain parameters and intensity of irregularities present. Rolling side domain of-4.5 ≤ X ≤ 1.5 with grid size ∆X=0.01375 is selected. A computer code is developed to solve Reynolds equation, which governs the generation of pressure in the lubricated contact zone is discritized and solved along with load balance equation using Newton-Raphson technique.


2011 ◽  
Vol 194-196 ◽  
pp. 2305-2311
Author(s):  
Ying Ge Yang ◽  
Dong Mei Zeng ◽  
Hai Zhou ◽  
Wen Ran Feng ◽  
Shan Lu ◽  
...  

In this study high quality of Al doped ZnO (ZAO) thin films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering on glass substrates at room temperature in order to study the thickness effect upon their structure, electrical and optical properties. XRD results show that the films are polycrystalline and with strongly preferred (002) orientation perpendicular to substrate surface whatever the thickness is. The crystallite size was calculated by Williamson-Hall method, while it increases as the film thickness increased. The lattice stress is mainly caused by the growth process. Hall measurements revealed electrical parameter very dependent upon thickness when the thickness of ZAO film is lower than 700 nm. The resistivity decreased and the carrier concentration and Hall mobility increases as the film thickness increased. When film thickness becomes larger, only a little change in the above properties was observed. All the films have high transmittance above 90% in visible range. Red shift of the absorption edge was observed as thickness increased. The optical energy bandgap decreased from 3.41eV to 3.30 eV with the increase of film thickness.


1984 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Otsuka ◽  
L. A. Kolodziejski ◽  
R. L. Gunshor ◽  
S. Datta ◽  
R. N. Bicknell ◽  
...  

AbstractCdTe films have been grown on GaAs substrates with two types of interfaces - one with the epitaxial relation (111)CdTe║ (100)GaAs and the other with (100)CdTe║ (100)GaAs,. High resolution electron microscope observation of the two types of interfaces was carried out in order to determine the role of the substrate surface microstructure in determining the epitaxy. The interface of the former type shows a direct contact between the CdTe and GaAs crystals, while the interface of the latter type has a very thin oxide layer (∼10 Å in thickness) between the two crystals. These observations suggest that details of the substrate preheating cycle prior to film growth is the principle factor in determining which epitaxial relation occurs in this system. The relation between interfacial structures and the origin of the two epitaxial relations is discussed.


1998 ◽  
Vol 535 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Chang ◽  
S.K. Mathis ◽  
G.E. Beltz ◽  
C.M. Landis

AbstractOne critical issue in heteroepitaxial, lattice mismatched growth is the inevitable appearance of threading dislocations which reside in the relaxing film and degrade its semiconducting properties. It has been shown in previous work that threading dislocations interact with each other through a series of annihilation and fusion reactions to decrease their density as the film thickness increases and follow a 1/h decay, where h is the film thickness. A characteristic reaction radius is associated with these interactions. In previous simulations, the reaction radius was taken to be a constant value estimated using a simple approximation based on infinite, parallel dislocation lines. Here, a continuum-based elasticity approach is taken to more accurately quantify the reaction radius by comparing the Peach-Koehler force of one dislocation acting on another at a free surface with the lattice resistance to dislocation motion. The presence of the free surface gives rise to a moderate reduction of the interaction force. Results are compared with preliminary experimental data for GaAs films grown on InP.


1991 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 2264-2271 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Ramesh ◽  
A. Inam ◽  
D.M. Hwang ◽  
T.S. Ravi ◽  
T. Sands ◽  
...  

We have examined the atomic structure of growth interfaces in thin films of Y–Ba–Cu–O grown on [001] perovskite or cubic substrates. At substrate heater temperatures in the range of 780–820 °C c-axis oriented growth is observed on these substrates. On SrTiO3, the first layer appears to be either a BaO or a CuO2 plane while on LaAlO3 the first layer appears to be a CuO chain layer. The mismatch on the a-b plane is accommodated by the formation of interface dislocations. Defects on the substrate surface propagate as defects in the film. These defects are primarily translational boundaries and in some cases second phases. At lower substrate heater temperatures, i.e., 650–700 °C, a, b-axis growth dominates. Defects and steps on the substrate surface are more detrimental in the growth of a, b-axis oriented films, since they tend to favor the nucleation of c-axis oriented domains. This is ascribed to the ledge mechanism of c-axis film growth, for which the surface steps are good nucleation sites.


1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3378-3388
Author(s):  
Y. Huang ◽  
B. V. Vuchic ◽  
M. Carmody ◽  
P. M. Baldo ◽  
K. L. Merkle ◽  
...  

The sputter-induced epitaxy change of in-plane orientation occurring in YBa2Cu3O7-x (001) thin films grown on MgO (001) substrates by pulsed organo-metallic beam epitaxy (POMBE) is investigated by a series of film growth and characterization experiments, including RBS and TEM. The factors influencing the orientation change are systematically studied. The experimental results suggest that the substrate surface morphology change caused by the ion sputtering and the Ar ion implantation in the substrate surface layer are not the major factors that affect the orientation change. Instead, the implantation of W ions, which come from the hot filament of the ion gun, and the initial Ba deposition layer in the YBCO film growth play the most important roles in controlling the epitaxy orientation change. Microstructure studies show that a BaxMg1-xO buffer layer is formed on top of the sputtered substrate surface due to Ba diffusion into the W implanted layer. It is believed that the formation of this buffer layer relieves the large lattice mismatch and changes the YBCO film from the 45° oriented growth to the 0° oriented growth.


2006 ◽  
Vol 956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul William May ◽  
Matthew Hannaway

ABSTRACTUltrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films have been deposited using hot filament chemical vapour deposition using Ar/CH4/H2 gas mixtures plus additions of B2H6 in an attempt to make p-type semiconducting films. With increasing additions of B2H6 from 0 to 40,000 ppm with respect to C, the film growth rate was found to decrease substantially, whilst the individual grain sizes increased from nm to μm. With 40,000 ppm of B2H6, crystals of boric oxide were found on the substrate surface, which slowly hydrolysed to boric acid on exposure to air. These results are rationalised using a model for UNCD growth based on competition for surface radical sites between CH3 and C atoms.


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