Optical constants of aluminum films prepared by electron beam evaporation

Abstract

The metal aluminum (Al) is widely used because it has high reflectivity from the ultraviolet to the infrared band. But the new deposited Al films is exposed to the atmosphere, it forms transparent Al2O3 films on its surface at once. In this letter, the Al films is deposited on the quartz substrate by electron beam evaporation. The effect of Al films oxidation on refractive index and extinction coefficient is investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The optical constants of Al films change with the increase of oxidation time. The two parameters become stable when these films are exposed in air more than 2 days.