Chemical Liquid Phase Deposition of Thin Aluminum Oxide Films

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple chemical liquid phase deposition method for creating high-quality thin aluminum oxide films on semiconductors, emphasizing control of pH and post-growth annealing to improve film properties.

Contribution

It presents a novel, straightforward physicochemical technique for depositing aluminum oxide films with detailed characterization and process optimization.

Findings

Growth rate of 12 nm/h at room temperature

Post-annealing densifies and crystallizes films

Films exhibit excellent quality confirmed by multiple spectroscopic methods

Abstract

Thin aluminum oxide films were deposited by a new and simple physicochemical method called chemical liquid phase deposition (CLD) on semiconductor materials. Aluminum sulfate with crystallized water and sodium bicarbonate were used as precursors for film growth, and the control of the system pH value played an important role in this experiment. The growth rate is 12 nm/h at room temperature. Post-growth annealing not only densifies and purifies the films, but results in film crystallization as well. Excellent quality of Al2O3 films in this work is supported by electron dispersion spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrum, X-ray diffraction spectrum and scanning electron microscopy photograph.