TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental determination of the rates of decomposition and cation desorption from AlN surfaces
AU - Fan, Z. Y.
AU - Newman, Nathan
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Dr. Colin Wood for his encouragement and support. This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (Contract No. N00014-00-1-0783).
PY - 2001/12/19
Y1 - 2001/12/19
N2 - The decomposition rate of AlN thin films in vacuum, nitrogen gas and plasma is reported. The AlN thermal decomposition rate in vacuum is found to have an activation energy of 5.4 eV. The evaporation coefficient is inferred to be less than 0.001, indicating that this process is kinetically limited. Large kinetic energy ion bombardment ( ∼ 70 eV), which occurs in the plasma at low nitrogen pressures (0.02 mT), is found to enhance the decomposition rate by a factor of ∼ 2. In contrast, exposure to 0.3 mT nitrogen pressure or low kinetic energy plasmas ( ∼ 25 eV) at similar pressures diminishes the AlN evaporation rate by a factor of ∼ 3. This result can be attributed to the chemical reactivity of the desorption site, presumably at a kink or step edge. Plasmas containing predominantly excited atomic species do not significantly change the decomposition rate. Temperature-dependent measurements of the aluminum surface resident lifetime on AlN surfaces indicate that the Al desorption energy is 3.0 eV.
AB - The decomposition rate of AlN thin films in vacuum, nitrogen gas and plasma is reported. The AlN thermal decomposition rate in vacuum is found to have an activation energy of 5.4 eV. The evaporation coefficient is inferred to be less than 0.001, indicating that this process is kinetically limited. Large kinetic energy ion bombardment ( ∼ 70 eV), which occurs in the plasma at low nitrogen pressures (0.02 mT), is found to enhance the decomposition rate by a factor of ∼ 2. In contrast, exposure to 0.3 mT nitrogen pressure or low kinetic energy plasmas ( ∼ 25 eV) at similar pressures diminishes the AlN evaporation rate by a factor of ∼ 3. This result can be attributed to the chemical reactivity of the desorption site, presumably at a kink or step edge. Plasmas containing predominantly excited atomic species do not significantly change the decomposition rate. Temperature-dependent measurements of the aluminum surface resident lifetime on AlN surfaces indicate that the Al desorption energy is 3.0 eV.
KW - AlN surfaces
KW - Rate of cation desorption
KW - Rate of decomposition
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U2 - 10.1016/S0921-5107(01)00720-6
DO - 10.1016/S0921-5107(01)00720-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0035915296
SN - 0921-5107
VL - 87
SP - 244
EP - 248
JO - Materials Science and Engineering: B
JF - Materials Science and Engineering: B
IS - 3
ER -