Enhanced reactively sputtered Al_2O_3 deposition by addition of activated reactive oxygen

摘要

The impact of pre-activation of oxygen in the reactive sputtr depsotion of Al_2O_3 is investigated. Oxygen, activated by an independent plasma source, is introduced into an aluminum sputtering chamber as an alternative to conventional reactive sputtring techniques employing the injection of ground state molecular O_2. The technique of generating activated oxygen using an Inductively-Coupled Plasma (ICP) source is discussed with optimized conditions defined. Characteristics of deposition behavior are investigated with and without the activation of the reactive species to assess the impact of the active oxygen as an enhancement. Deposition behavior is evaluated based on target voltage hysteresis, arcing susceptibility and deposition rate. Film properties are evaluated to determine the impact to chemical stocihiometry, optical quality and physical characteristics.