Abstract
AlN thin films were deposited on flexible Hastelloy tapes and Si (100) substrate by middle-frequency magnetron sputtering. A layer of Y2O3 films was used as a buffer layer for the Hastelloy tapes. A two-step deposition technique was used to prepare the AlN films. The effects of deposition parameters such as sputtering power, N2/Ar flow rate and sputtering pressure on the microstructure of the AlN thin films were systematically investigated. The results show that the dependency of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of AlN/Y2O3/Hastelloy on the sputtering parameters is similar to that of AlN/Si (100). The FWHM of the AlN (002) peak of the prepared AlN films decreases with increasing sputtering power. The FWHM decreases with the increase of the N2/Ar flow rate or sputtering pressure, and increases with the further increase of the N2/Ar flow rate or sputtering pressure. The FWHM of the AlN/Y2O3/Hastelloy prepared under optimized parameters is only 3.7° and its root mean square (RMS) roughness is 5.46 nm. Based on the experimental results, the growth mechanism of AlN thin films prepared by the two-step deposition process was explored. This work would assist us in understanding the AlN film’s growth mechanism of the two-step deposition process, preparing highly c-axis–oriented AlN films on flexible metal tapes and developing flexible surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors from an application perspective.
Highlights
With the rapid development of science and technology, sensors for harsh environment applications are greatly required to sense physical quantities such as temperature, strain, torque, etc., in the metallurgy [1], petrochemical [2] and aerospace industries [3]
We systematically investigated the influence of deposition parameters on the microstructure of Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films and explored the growth mechanism of AlN thin films on
The results show that the sputtering power has a great influence on the primary energy of the sputtered particles arriving at the substrate surface which is the key energy to form c-axis–oriented AlN columns
Summary
With the rapid development of science and technology, sensors for harsh environment applications are greatly required to sense physical quantities such as temperature, strain, torque, etc., in the metallurgy [1], petrochemical [2] and aerospace industries [3]. We propose to fabricate SAW sensors with AlN thin films which are deposited on a flexible alloy substrate such as Hastelloy tapes As a result, it can meet the demand of high temperature and flexibility. Of sputtering parameters on the microstructure of AlN films are systematically studied and the AlN thin film’s growth mechanism of the two-step deposition process is explored. 2. Materials and Methods us understand the growth mechanism of AlN films on an alloy substrate, thereby paving an new way to integrate films deposited and electric by devices with metal components or workpieces. The substrates used in this work were Hastelloy C-276 alloy tapes, which consist of 16.0% of molybdenum,
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