THE INFLUENCE OF THE REACTIVE GAS-FLOW ON THE PROPERTIES OF ALN SPUTTER-DEPOSITED FILMS

Aluminium nitride (AlN) has a number of mechanical, optical and electronic applications both as bulk and recently also as film material. Chemical and physical vapour deposition as well as ion implantation have been used to produce AlN films. So far, very little detailed information is available on how film properties depend on plasma process conditions in reactive sputtering. In the present study is shown the feasibility of applying a procedure for film deposition, enabling films with reproducible properties to be deposited. On the basis of only pressure and flow measurements, it was possible to find the optimum conditions for obtaining stoichiometric films within a certain range of sputtering pressure. This study has demonstrated a convenient and inexpensive procedure for selecting sputtering conditions so that information on the film deposition rate, film morphology and mechanical properties of the film can be easily obtained.