PREPARATION OF C-AXIS ORIENTED ALN THIN-FILMS BY LOW-TEMPERATURE REACTIVE SPUTTERING

C-axis oriented aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films on (110) silicon were prepared by reactive RF magnetron sputtering in argon and nitrogen atmosphere without substrate heating. We investigated the dependence of some properties for the AlN thin film on sputtering conditions, especially N2 concentration. It was found that c-axis orientation tended to improve gradually with decreasing N2 concentration. The full width of half the maximum intensity (FWHM) of the rocking curve for a (002) plane of hexagonal AlN was 1 approximately 2 degrees at a 10% N2 concentration. This was a suitable value for surface acoustic wave (SAW) device. IDT/AlN/(110)Si structure SAW resonators were fabricated. It was confirmed that the insertion loss was 14 dB and phase velocity was 4800 m/s, respectively.