Preparation of double-sided biaxially textured magnesium oxide thin films

Abstract

A high-efficiency system was designed as an improvement in conventional reel-to-reel system for ion beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) and homo-epitaxy of double-sided biaxially textured MgO thin films. This system enables Hastelloy tape to flip automatically and go through the deposition area twice in order to deposit MgO on its both sides. With this system, the output of double-sided IBAD-MgO is elevated to be 30 m·h−1. A 30-m tapes with 10-nm-thick double-sided biaxially textured MgO thin films was successfully made. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscope (AFM) show identical quality of MgO thin films on both sides. The yield full width at half maximum values of out-of-plane texture and in-plane texture on both sides are approximately 3.1° and 5.3°, respectively. Moreover, the influence of ion beam flux and deposition rate on the texture of thin film was investigated. A process window in which biaxial texture can be obtained is found for large-scale production.