Crystalline growth of AlN thin films by atomic layer deposition

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin film was grown by plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition using trimethylaluminum and ammonia precursors. A method was found to have crystalline thin film AlN with almost zero thickness variation and a truly one layer deposition of atoms per each cycle of the process. The growth rate saturated at ∼ 1 A/cycle, and the thickness was proportional to the number of reaction cycles. The preferred crystal orientation, uniformity of the nucleation and the surface roughness of the grown AlN were investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic focused microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were carried out to analyze the crystallinity and properties of the films.status: publishe