Influence of incidence angle and distance on the structure of aluminium nitride films prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering

Aluminum nitride (AlN) films were reactively deposited on (100) oriented silicon substrates by reactive radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering for different incidence angles and distances between substrate and target.X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to consider the influence of process parameters such as reactive gas flow rate, grazing incidence angle (α), and distance (d) between substrate and target surface on the property of AlN films. XRD results showed that AlN film prepared at a constant distance (d) of 3 cm and an incidence angle of 45° revealed a mixture of AlN (002), (100), and (101) planes, while the film prepared at α = 0° revealed a strong AlN (002) orientation which has a perpendicular growth direction to the substrate surface. AFM results showed that AlN film prepared at α = 0° exhibited more flat surface morphology than that of film prepared at α = 45°.