Growth of InN thin films on different Si substrates at ambient temperature

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper was to investigate the growth dependence of InN on Si substrate with different orientation through RF reactive magnetron sputtering in ambient temperature.Design/methodology/approachThe authors fabricated indium nitride (InN) thin films by radio frequency (RF) sputtering. The InN thin films were deposited on Si (100), Si (110) and Si (111) substrates at room temperature. The crystalline structure and surface morphology of the InN films were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDX) and atomic force microscopy (AFM).FindingsX‐ray diffraction results revealed that the wurtzite InN with preferential (101) orientation are deposited. Through the Scherrer structural analysis revealed nanocrystalline structure for InN films grown on Si (110), Si (100) and Si (111) orientation with crystallite size of 42.3, 33.8 and 24.1, respectively. The optical properties of InN layers were examined by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and micro‐Raman reflectance spectroscopy at room temperature. The observation of the E1(TO), A1(LO), and E2(high) phonon modes of the InN from the IR and Raman results confirmed that the deposited InN thin film has hexagonal structure.Originality/valueSi (110) surface is not isotropic and it may offer a unique orientation plane for the nitride films which could reduce the defect density and the resulting tensile stress responsible for film cracking. Therefore, it is absolutely worth exploring the growth of InN on Si (110) by using relatively simple and cheap reactive sputtering technique.