Epitaxial growth of al thin films on mica and investigation of film structure

Abstract

The temperature dependence of the structure of the aluminium thin film was studied. Reflection and transmission electron diffraction (RED and TED, respectively) patterns show that the changes of the polar orientation (texture) and the azimuthal orientation (due to epitaxy) arise in the film as the temperature of substrate surface is increased. The simultaneous presence of spot patterns at RED and arc or ring patterns at TED in a certain temperature range is explained by the preferred orientation of the film grains in the azimuthal direction and the nearly perfect orientation in the polar direction. The particular changes of the azimuthal orientation became at the temperature of the largest desorption of water molecules from mica so that we deduce that the presence of water molecules is necessary for the particular degree of the azimuthal orientation at lower temperature. At a higher temperature (≈500°C) of the substrate surface the well-oriented films were prepared with the same diffraction patterns as single crystal with orientation (111)_Al// //(001)_M and (110)_Al//(010)_M (double positioning is present in the films).