Investigation of alumina–silica films deposited by pulsed injection metal–organic chemical vapour deposition

Abstract

This work is devoted to deposition of alumina–silica films using an innovative pulsed injection metal organic chemical vapour deposition technique and aluminium tri(iso-propoxide) (Al(i-OPr)3) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as precursors. The deposited aluminium silicate films have been characterised by scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometry and capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurements. The investigation of the deposition at different Si/Al ratios and substrate temperatures has shown that the growth rate increases with the increase of Al(i-OPr)3 proportion in solution and decreases as the proportion of TEOS increases. We have also shown that aluminium content in the film increases at lower deposition temperatures while silicon content increases at higher temperatures. The permittivity of the films determined from C–V measurements decreases with increasing substrate temperature. It was found that films deposited at substrate temperatures of 600 or 700 °C and with the highest Si/Al ratio have the lowest dielectric permittivity. This research should be useful for further development of MOCVD technology for the deposition of aluminosilicate-based dielectric materials with controlled dielectric permittivity.