Structural, chemical and optical characterizations of nanocrystallized AlN:Er thin films prepared by r.f. magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Nanocrystalline n-AlN:Er thin films were deposited on (001) Silicon substrates by r. f. magnetron sputtering at room temperature to study the correlation between 1.54 μm IR photoluminescence (PL) intensity, AlN crystalline structure and Er concentration rate. This study first presents how Energy-Dispersive Spectroscopy of X-rays (EDSX) Er Cliff Lorimer sensitivity factor = 5 is obtained by combining EDSX and electron probe micro analysis (EPMA) results on reference samples. It secondly presents the relative PL 2 intensities of nanocrystallized samples prepared with identical sputtering parameters as a function of the Er concentration. The structure of crystallites in AlN films is observed by transmission electron microscopy.

Erbium location into AlN films as probed by spatial resolution experimental techniques

“…The erbium concentration was determined by Electron Dispersive Spectroscopy of X-rays (EDSX) and by the highly sensitive Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) technique. More precision on EDSX chemical calibration method could be found in Brien et al [33].…”

“…The adopted morphologies are fully consistent with what could be expected after reading the Thornton "Structure Zone Diagram" except that the present films are dense and exhibit no porosity. The stability of the crystalline morphology by this deposition process when doping the films with Erbium rare earth was presented in references [23] and [33]. As elemental X-ray mapping by Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy with an X-ray energy dispersive spectrometer usually allows to get good indications in analysing nano-scale features in materials such as fine precipitates and interfaces/boundaries, we recorded X-ray mappings on the richest sample in erbium.…”

Influence of the magnetron power on the Er‐related photoluminescence of AlN:Er films prepared by magnetron sputtering

“…Although proper calibration of this technique was done (by using the stoichiometric compound Er 2 O 3 as a reference to asses the Cliff Lorimer coefficients), the obtained results were independently checked by RBS. More details on the chemical analyses procedure can be found in Brien et al [16]. EDSX analysis was performed by using an EDAX spectrometer mounted on a CM20 Philips microscope and equipped with an ultra thin window X-Ray detector.…”

First-principles study of electronic structure and magnetism of cubic Al1−xErxN using the LSDA+U approach

“…Furthermore, photoluminescence in the visible has been observed in RE-doped GaN [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and RE-doped AlN [13][14][15][16][17][18][19], which present an excellent opportunity for applications to full-color flat-panel displays [20][21][22]. An interesting aspect of these ions is the occurrence of localized strongly correlated 4e electrons, of which the treatment presents a challenge to band-structure theory.…”