The preparation and characterization of preferred (110) orientation aluminum nitride thin films on Si (100) substrates by pulsed laser deposition

The preferred (110) oriented aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films have been prepared by pulsed laser deposition on p-Si (100) substrates. The films were characterized with X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscope (AFM). The results indicate that the AlN thin films are well-crystallized when laser energy is higher than 300 mJ/puls. The AFM images show that the surface roughness of the deposited AlN thin films gradually increases with increasing laser energy, but the surface morphologies are still very smooth. The crystallinity and morphology of the thin films are found to be strongly dependent on the laser energy.