E. Dogheche et al., Growth and optical characterization of aluminum nitride thin films deposited on silicon by radio-frequency sputtering, APPL PHYS L, 74(9), 1999, pp. 1209-1211
Highly textured hexagonal aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films were deposited
on silicon substrates by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering at a substrat
e temperature below 400 degrees C and annealed in the temperature range of
400-450 degrees C by rapid thermal annealing. The optical and the electro-o
ptical properties have been investigated using the prism-coupling technique
. Both ordinary and extraordinary refractive indices (n(o) = 2.0058 and n(e
) = 2.0374 at 632.8 nm) were respectively determined from the transverse el
ectric and the transverse magnetic mode excitations. Furthermore, refractiv
e index profiles analysis by using an improved inverse Wentzel-Kramer-Brill
ouin method reveals a step-like behavior of AlN thin films. The optical los
ses have been evaluated to be around 7 dB cm(-1). The electro-optic coeffic
ient r(13) of 0.98 pm/V has been measured from the variation of the shift o
f guided-modes spectrum as a function of the applied electric field in the
experiment. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)03709-2]
.