Distinctions of the growth and structural-spectroscopic investigations of thin AlN films grown on the GaAs substrates

Using X-ray diffraction analysis, atomic force microscopy, IR and UV spectroscopy, the properties of thin aluminium nitride films (<200 nm) that were obtained by ion-plasma reactive sputtering on GaAs substrates with different orientations were studied.The films of aluminium nitride can have a refractive index within the range of 1.6–4.0 for the wavelength band around ~250 nm and an optical band-gap of ~5 eV. It was shown that the morphology, surface composition and optical functional characteristics of AlN/GaAs heterophase systems can be controlled owing to the use of misoriented GaAs substrates as well choice of the technological parameters used for the film growth.