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Helicon-Wave-Excited-Plasma Sputtering Epitaxy of Zno On Sapphire 0001 Substrates
Helicon-Wave-Excited-Plasma Sputtering Epitaxy of Zno On Sapphire 0001 Substrates
15 JANUARY 2002
H. Nakanishi
Department of Electrical Engineering, Science University of Tokyo, 2641 Yamazaki, Noda,
Chiba 278-8510, Japan
I. INTRODUCTION
Among a variety of thin film fabrication methods, metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy MOVPE and molecularbeam epitaxy MBE are exclusively used for the epitaxial
growth of semiconductor ultrathin films and quantum hetero/
nanostructures due to their ability to fabricate well-defined
structures having atomically abrupt interfaces. On the other
hand, sputtering methods have several advantages since they
can prepare large-area films of well-controlled compositions
economically. The growth rate is high enough for thick films
and low enough for ultrathin films by changing the sputtering
rate of the target. However, the surface damage caused by
high energy sputtering particles, which are accelerated by a
field between the target and the substrate, is an essential
problem. Moreover, exposing the substrate in the plasma
sometimes causes contamination or resputtering.
To solve these problems, we have used a helicon-waveexcited plasma HWP, of which physics and experiments
have been reported by several researchers.1 4 Such a plasma
can be excited under relatively lower pressure
(104 Torr) and produces a higher density and lower ion
energy compared to those of the usual capacitively coupled
plasmas,4,5 and can be used as a sort of remote plasma source
for the sputtering deposition of Al-doped ZnO ZnO:Al
polycrystalline transparent thin films. As a result of the lower
gas pressure and reduced surface damage, very smooth,
highly 0001-oriented, low-resistivity (5104 cm),
transparent ZnO:Al films have been obtained without additional annealings using the HWP sputtering technique.5
A schematic diagram of the HWPSE apparatus sc HW6P is shown in Fig. 1. It consisted of a vacuum deposition
chamber in which a 99.999% pure 2-in.-diam undoped ZnO
target and a 0001 sapphire substrate heated by a SiC heater
were placed; a 5-cm-diam 24-cm-long quartz tube inlet surrounded by a Nagoya type-III antenna17 through which a cw
rf field 13.56 MHz was supplied; two electromagnetic coils
to apply a weak field gradient; and a pumping system. The
HWP was introduced into the chamber, and the plasma beam
was directly irradiated on the tilted target. A permanent magnet was placed in back of a dc-biased target holder to focus
the HWP. Note here that discharging due to the dc bias was
not observed. Our configuration enables depositing thin films
softly due to the elimination of plasma-induced damage of
the substrate. The following major modifications were made
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