Growth and study of Aluminium nitride films by

reactive magnetron sputtering and density

functional theory (DFT)

Supervisor: Dr M Zubair Khan Ahsan Shah Bukhari

Syed Atta Hussain
Co-Supervisor: Dr M Raffi Zainab Zafar
Flow chart of Research project

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

AlN thin film Characterization DFT modeling

growth process of developed AlN and results
thin films comparison
Overview
A thin film is a layer of material
ranging from fraction of
nanometer to several
micrometers in thickness. Used
in wafer fabrication, and can be
a resistor, a conductor, an
insulator, or even a
semiconductor.
Some a) Frank-van der
Merwe growth
Common
modes of thin
film
growth a) Volmer-Weber
growth

a) Stranski-
Krastanov
growth
Experimental parameters for Sputtering

Pressure

● Deposition rate will be function of sputter rate

● Sputter rate will be the function of Ar gas present inside the vacuum chamber
● There should be significant pressure present inside the chamber (~0.1 torr) to
make the mean free path small as compared to target to wafer distance

Sputter yield

Sputter yield= number of target atoms released / number of ions hitting the target
Magnetron Sputtering

To increase the sputter yield we add

magnetic field in the system besides the
electric field (parallel to wafer,
perpendicular to electric field), we add
permanent magnet just above the
cathode, electrons experience magnetic
force on them and creating more dense
plasma which in greater sputter rate and
eventually greater rate of deposition.
Parameters for AlN thin films

● Target will be water cooled and

approximately of 6 cm in diameter
● Pressure will be ~10-5 Pa
● Substrate will be Silicon
● To remove surface oxides (if any) use
5% HF solution
● Deposition time will be approximately 40
to 60 minutes
● Thickness of the film will be
approximately 500 nm
Step 2
Characterization of
thin films
 Characterization by X-ray diffraction
technique

In this technique we fall x-rays on the sample

which diffract and we detect the angle of
diffraction and using Bragg’s law (given below)
we find out lattice parameters of the sample.

2dsin𝜭=n𝝀

Where;

n is an integer, d is interplanar distance, 𝝀 is

wavelength of x-rays and 𝜭 is diffraction angle
Step 3
Computational
modeling by DFT
History

● Newtonian mechanics
● Quantum mechanics
● DFT
● Born-Oppenheimer Approximation

● Write in terms of electron Density

Lowest energy of the system is Unique fuctional of electron Density
● Structure Beyond current
Experimental capabilities

● Predict properties at a
resolution and length scale
currently inaccessible to
experiment
Softwares

● VASP
● Gaussian
● NWChem
● Atomistix ToolKit

And many more...

References

1. Xiao-Hong Xu , Hai-Shun Wu, Cong-Jie Zhang, Zhi-Hao Jin, Morphological

properties of AlN piezoelectric thin films deposited by DC reactive
magnetron sputtering, Thin Solid Films 388 2001 62-67, December 2000
2. J. Kohanoff and N.I. Gidopoulos, Density Functional Theory: Basics, New
Trends and Applications, Edited by Stephen Wilson, Handbook of
Molecular Physics and Quantum Chemistry (ISBN 0 471 62374 1), 2003