Browsing by Subject "Thin Film"

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Open Access
Chemistry and structure of sputter deposited boron-carbon-nitrogen thin films
(2012) Genişel, Mustafa Fatih
There is a growing interest in synthesizing new materials with unique mechanical properties like hardness or electrical and optical properties. For this purpose, Boron-Carbon-Nitrogen (BCN) ternary phase diagram promises new materials with potentially unique properties, such as variable band gap semiconductors or phases with extreme hardness. On the other hand, the physical or mechanical properties of these new BCN materials strongly depend on the chemical environment of the atoms and their atomic structure. In this thesis, atomic structure and chemical environment of the atoms in BCN thin films were investigated. BCN films were synthesized by Reactive Magnetron Sputtering (RMS) technique from a B4C target. Various process parameters of synthesis were changed during deposition, such as the substrate bias, substrateto-target distance and N2 flow. The effect of process parameters are investigated with respect to their fundamental effects on the growing BCN films. Several sets of experiments were planned and conducted in order to gain insight as per their effect on the final chemistry and atomic structure. The characterization of the chemical composition of the films was done using data from Infrared Spectroscopy, Raman Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, and Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy. Also, electron transparent thin crosssections from the BCN films were prepared using focused-ion beam technique for conducting High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy analysis for the verification of atomic structure. In the first series, named B series, the energy is supplied to growing film by applying a radio frequency generated d.c. bias on the substrate. Magnitude of the applied bias was changed throughout the series. In the second and third series, namely P and D series, the effect of substrate-to-target distance was investigated. In these series, BCN and BN films were deposited on substrates that were located at different distances from the target surface. In sub-series, effect of, i) the magnitude of applied bias, ii) type of applied substrate bias on the chemistry of the BCN films were scrutinized. In addition, the effect of atomic composition on the bonding preferences was studied. For this purpose, a series of BCN films were r.f. sputter deposited from B4C target with different N2 flow rate at the process gas. After the careful analysis of the data from mainly the spectroscopic techniques, several important results were obtained. First, a prevailing bonding preference, i.e. phase segregation, was observed in the films deposited regardless of the process parameters used, such that a dominant presence of B-N and C-C or C-N bonding were observed in the films. Furthermore, increasing the substrate bias or decreasing the substrate-to-target distance resulted in the atomic ordering and layered (turbostratic) BCN films. Examination of the spectroscopic data in detail also indicated that the individual layers were made out of separate domains of h-BN like and graphitic like carbon regions, which supports the phase-segregation assertion. Two main regimes are identified for the growth of BCN films; thermodynamically or kinetically controlled regimes. BCN films synthesized with large substrate bias or close to target surface were overall more ordered as the adatoms arriving on the substrate surface had enough energy to diffuse and find energetically most favorable sites. Such a case could be termed as thermodynamically controlled regime. In the opposite case, where adatoms were in a diffusion-limited environment, the final chemistry and structure was dictated by the kinetics. However, the prevalence of B-N bonding in both cases, and failure to observe hybridized chemistry suggests that bonding energy consideration is the major deciding factor for the chemistry of BCN films. As a conclusion, the work presented herein suggests that phase segregation in BCN films reveal as an innate character, while hybridization is not observed in the process parameter space explored. The main reason for this is the relative energies of the B-N and C-C bonding.
Open Access
Fabrication and characterization of amorphous silicon microcavities
(1999) Tanriseven, Selim
In this thesis, planar amorphous silicon microcavities were fabricated and characterized at room temperature. Microcavities were realized by embedding the active amorphous silicon layer between distributed Bragg reflectors, which are composed of alternating silicon oxide and silicon nitride layers. All of the layers were grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrates. By tuning the cavity mode to emission maximum of amorphous silicon, a narrow and enhanced emission line is obtained. Device characterization was done by means of photoluminescence, and reflectance measurements. The experimental results compare favorably with the theoretical calculations performed by transfer matrix method.
Open Access
Growth and characterization of boron nitride thin films and nanostructures using atomic layer deposition = Bor nitrür ince filmlerin ve nanoyapıların atomik katman biriktirme yöntemi ile büyütülmesi ve karakterizasyonu
(2014) Haider, Ali
Being a member of III-nitride family, boron nitride (BN) and its nanostructures have recently attracted a lot of attention, mainly due to their distinctive and superior material properties, including wide band gap, high-temperature stability, high oxidation and corrosion resistance, as well as high thermal conductivity. This versatile material has found applications in UV emission, lubrication, composite reinforcement, gas adsorption, cosmetics, and thermal management. For modern electronic applications, it is imperative to obtain high quality BN films on large area substrates with a controlled thickness in order to fulfill the entire spectrum of hBN applications. Also, a facile method such as atomic layer deposition (ALD) using non halide precursors is necessary to obtain BN films at low temperatures compliant with the standards in terms of having nontoxic byproducts. ALD is a special case of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), in which two or more precursors are sequentially exposed to substrate surface separated by purging periods. In comparison with other thin film growth methods, hall mark of ALD is self limiting growth mechanism which enables deposition of highly uniform and conformal thin films with sub-angstrom thickness control. The precise and conformal layer by layer growth of ALD can be exploited to achieve growth of BN hollow nanofibers (HNFs) on high aspect ratio electrospun polymer nanofibrous templates. BN HNFs fabricated by combination of ALD and electrospinning can be utilized to address and solve important constraints associated with previous methods of fabrication such as severe preparation conditions, limited control over morphology, and low purity of the resulting BN HNFs. In this thesis, we report on the controlled deposition of BN films and its nanostructures with the use of a hollow-cathode plasma source integrated (HCPA-ALD) reactor and present detailed materials characterization results of deposited thin films and fabricated nanostructures. Depositions are carried out at low substrate temperatures (less than 450 °C) using sequential injection of nonhalide triethylboron (TEB) and N2/H2 plasma as boron and nitrogen precursors, respectively. The deposition process parameters such as pulse length of TEB and substrate temperature, as well as the influence of post-deposition annealing are studied. Moreover, another nonhalide alternative precursor named tris(dimethyl)amidoboron (TDMAB) was studied for deposition of BN films. Initial experiments were performed using TDMAB and N2/H2 plasma as boron and nitrogen precursor. In addition to BN thin film growth studies, we report on electrospun polymeric nanofibrous template-based fabrication and characterization of AlN/BN bishell HNFs. Synthesized AlN/BN bishell HNFs were found to be polycrystalline with a hexagonal structure along with lowimpurity content.