Aluminum nitride thin films grown by reactive AC magnetron sputtering are characterized using several metrology techniques to examine the correlation between surface quality, microstructure and piezoelectric properties. Atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy, and are employed to characterize the microstructure. . A range of substrate coatings is explored to understand the impact of topography on film crystallinity and piezoelectric performance. A first order approximation model providing the piezoelectric characteristics as a function of the c-axis misorientation in the mosaic-structured wurtzite AlN films is presented. While the model predicts a only small e 33,eff and kt change for a misorientation distribution of FWHM of less than 5 degrees, it services as a indication of the impact of AlN crystallinity on film piezoelectric properties.
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