Nitrogen Concentrations on Structural and Optical Properties of Aluminum Nitride Films Deposited by Reactive RF-Magnetron Sputtering

We have fabricated Aluminum Nitride (AlN) films on the quartz substrates using RF-reactive magnetron sputtering method. The conditions of the films have been performed under different concentration ratios between nitrogen and argon. We have found that all obtained films were transparent in visible wavelength. By using X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique, it was found that the (002), (102) and (103) orientations were shown in XRD patterns. The (002) orientation was dominant when nitrogen concentration (CN) was at 40%. On the other hand, the refractive index and optical band gap energy of the films were determined as a function of CN. We have found that the refractive index weakly depended on CN, while optical band gap energy did not.