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Thickness-dependence of optical constants for Ta2O5 ultrathin films

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Abstract

An effective method for determining the optical constants of Ta2O5 thin films deposited on crystal silicon (c-Si) using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) measurement with a two-film model (ambient–oxide–interlayer–substrate) was presented. Ta2O5 thin films with thickness range of 1–400 nm have been prepared by the electron beam evaporation (EBE) method. We find that the refractive indices of Ta2O5 ultrathin films less than 40 nm drop with the decreasing thickness, while the other ones are close to those of bulk Ta2O5. This phenomenon was due to the existence of an interfacial oxide region and the surface roughness of the film, which was confirmed by the measurement of atomic force microscopy (AFM). Optical properties of ultrathin film varying with the thickness are useful for the design and manufacture of nano-scaled thin-film devices.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) project of China with the contract numbers 60778028, 60938004, 60908005, 11174058, by the No. 2 National Science and Technology Major Project of China under Contract No. 2011ZX02109-004, and by the STCSM project of China with the Grant No. 08DZ1204600.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures, Ministry of Education, Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China

    Dong-Xu Zhang, Yu-Xiang Zheng, Qing-Yuan Cai, Wei Lin, Kang-Ning Wu, Peng-Hui Mao, Rong-Jun Zhang, Hai-bin Zhao & Liang-Yao Chen

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  1. Dong-Xu Zhang
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  2. Yu-Xiang Zheng
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Correspondence to Yu-Xiang Zheng.

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Zhang, DX., Zheng, YX., Cai, QY. et al. Thickness-dependence of optical constants for Ta2O5 ultrathin films. Appl. Phys. A 108, 975–979 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-012-7007-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-012-7007-2

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