Low-temperature growth of SiCalN films of high hardness on Si(111) substrates

Radek Roucka, John Tolle, David Smith, Peter Crozier, I. S T Tsong, John Kouvetakis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Thin films of metastable SiCAlN solid solution were deposited on Si(111) substrates at 550-750 °C, considerably below the miscibility gap of SiC and AlN phases at 1900 °C. Our low-temperature growth was based upon thermally activated reactions between a unimolecular precursor H3SiCN and Al atoms from an evaporative cell in a molecular-beam-epitaxy chamber. Characterization of deposited films by spectroscopic and microscopic techniques yielded near-stoichiometric composition throughout the columnar wurtzite structure with lattice parameters very close to those of 2H-SiC and hexagonal AlN. An average hardness of 25 GPa was measured for the SiCAlN films, comparable to that measured for sapphire.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2880-2882
Number of pages3
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume79
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 29 2001

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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