| AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Thin Film | Monday Sessions |
| Session TF2-MoA |
| Session: | Thin Films: Growth and Characterization II |
| Presenter: | X.F. Duan, The University of Melbourne, Australia |
| Authors: | X.F. Duan, The University of Melbourne, Australia N.H. Tran, University of Western Sydney, Australia N.K. Roberts, The University of New South Wales, Australia R.N. Lamb, The University of Melbourne, Australia |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Al2O3 thin films are useful in a variety of applications from gate insulators to implant prosthetic devices. They can be made in a number of different ways but usually at high temperatures (> 800 °C) and considerable expense. A reduction in these requires exploration of chemical deposition carried out in gas or liquid phases. Single Source Chemical Vapour Deposition (SSCVD) effectively delivers a metal organic package of stoichiometric Al:O in the form of aluminium(III) diisopropylcarbamate and reduces the temperature of formation to 500 °C. Amorphous Al(OH)n thin films with an average thickness of 200 nm can also be deposited at even lower temperatures by a simple solvothermal reaction. The decomposition of this carbamate precursor produces hydroxylated thin films at temperature of 65 °C. A subsequently high pressure hydrothermal reaction produces the dehydration of hydroxides and to promote the formation of polycrystalline oxide films. The chemical and structural integrity of these films are examined by XPS and NEXAFS.
The critical feature of these types of fabrication is the control of the thermal stability of the chemical precursor. In particular the selection of precursors which readily undergo β-elimination decomposition pathways and as a result will always produce highly volatile by-products. Resultant films are then always guaranteed to be relatively contaminant free.