IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Thin Films Monday Sessions
       Session TF-MoP

Paper TF-MoP4
The Study of Growth of Al on Polyimide Free-standing Films

Monday, October 29, 2001, 5:30 pm, Room 134/135

Session: Multilayers and Thin Film Characterization Poster Session
Presenter: X.-F. Lin, Charles Evans & Associates
Authors: X.-F. Lin, Charles Evans & Associates
D.A. Grove, Luxel Corporation
T.F. Fister, Charles Evans & Associates
L.P. Bisaha, Charles Evans & Associates
G.S. Strossman, Charles Evans & Associates
L.-C. Wei, Charles Evans & Associates
G. Lefever-Button, Luxel Corporation
J.R. Kingsley, Charles Evans & Associates
I.D. Ward, Charles Evans & Associates
R.W. Odom, Charles Evans & Associates
P.M. Lindley, Charles Evans & Associates
Correspondent: Click to Email
Al thin film growth on polyimide free-standing films has been studied by several different characterization techniques. We focused our attention on investigating Al growth, nucleation, and the resulting surface structures. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to monitor surface morphological evolution and variations of stoichiometries of the Al/polyimide complex as a function of the increasing thickness of Al thin films. The chemical bonding states between Al and polyimide complex were obtained by using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS); while the local surface electronic density distribution about the Fermi-level was revealed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) measurements. We found that during the initial interaction between the condensing Al adatoms and the polyimide substrate, the Al adatoms interact with carbonyl groups of the polyimide to form small clusters which conform to the surface morphology of the polyimide film. Further Al growth produces oriented crystallized sub-micron islands that enlarge with additional Al deposition. The STS I-V spectra acquired at different stages of Al growth show variations of local surface electric conductivity which are affected by adsorbate-substrate and adsorbate-adsorbate interactions, as well as external environmental conditions. These results are compared for Al grown on both free-standing and Si substrate-supported polyimide films.