AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Thursday Sessions
       Session AS-ThP

Paper AS-ThP32
Relative Sputter Rates of Oxide Films: Constancy, Energy and Angle Dependence

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 5:30 pm, Room 3rd Floor Lobby

Session: Aspects of Applied Surface Science Poster Session
Presenter: A.S. Lea, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Authors: A.S. Lea, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
M.H. Engelhard, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
D.R. Baer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
T. Droubay, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
P. Nachimuthu, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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The increased use of oxide films for a variety of applications has produced a significant interest in knowing the relative rates that different oxides sputter. Because of the wide use of oxide films in our laboratory we have undertaken a series of measurements comparing the relative rates of sputtering of a variety of thin film oxides to a known thickness of SiO@sub 2@ on Si. We have found that these sputter rates differ by more than a factor of two. It is well established for pure materials that the sputter rates significantly change extensively as a function of energy and angle. In addition to the influence of damage that can also alter sputter rates, oxides may be susceptible to various stages of disorder and ion beam induced reduction that may lead to depth dependent changes in sputter rate. In this paper we report a series of measurements to determine the constancy of the oxide sputter rates and the dependence of the relative rates on angle and energy. We are using a number of different oxide films of known thickness, including @alpha@-Cr@sub 2@O@sub 3@, anatase, rutile, and zinc oxide. The oxides have been grown by MBE or PLD and measured by XRR. Time dependent sputter rates are being measured by EDS using a method described by Musket and Strausser.@footnote 1@ The energy and angle dependences are being made by argon ion sputtering in a Phi Quantum 2000 XPS system or a Phi 680 Auger Nanoprobe system that contains an EDS analyzer. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ RG Musket and YE Strausser, Appl. Phys. Lett 37 (1980) 478-480.