Expansion of lattice constants of aluminum nitride thin film prepared on sapphire substrate by ECR plasma sputtering method

Abstract

Wurzite aluminum nitride is prepared on a c-plane sapphire substrate by electron cyclotron resonance plasma-enhanced sputtering deposition (ECR sputtering). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed flat AlN thin-film surfaces, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis verified the epitaxial growth of AlN films with the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the rocking curve of 0.025 deg on the film with the thickness of 100 nm. XRD analysis also verified the change in the peak position for the AlN film along both out-of-plane and in-plane directions. The effect of lattice constants on the energy gap was theoretically estimated by the first principles method.