Abstract
Thin aluminum nitride (AlN) films have been synthesized by reactive ion–plasma sputtering (RIPS) and their properties have been studied in view of using this method for obtaining protective coatings on output facets of high-power semiconductor laser cavities based on AlxGa1 −xAs/GaAs heterostructures. Investigations by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and ellipsometry techniques showed that, at a residual pressure of ~10–5 Torr, a layer of aluminum oxynitride is formed and the film–substrate heteroboundary may experience to oxidation. However, AlN films with thicknesses on the order of 100 nm grown in pure nitrogen at a residual pressure of ~10–7 Torr were evidently free of oxygen and could reliably prevent its penetration to the region of heteroboundary.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to the department of photonics of St. Petersburg State University LETI, the staff of the L2N Laboratory of the Université de Technologie de Troyes, and the staff of the LNR Laboratory of the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne for their comprehensive support.
Funding
The work in the part of chemical analysis of the films was performed on the L2N/LRN NanoMat Platform supported by the Grand Est Region and the FEDER and DDRT Grand Est Foundations. T. Maurer also gratefully acknowledges support from the CNRS (project INSOMNIA, ANR-18-CE09-0003) and Graduate School EIPHI (project ANR-17-EURE0002).
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Translated by P. Pozdeev
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Fomin, E.V., Bondarev, A.D., Soshnikiv, I.P. et al. Using AlN Coatings to Protect the Surface of AlGaAs/GaAs System Heterostructures from Interaction with Atmospheric Oxygen. Tech. Phys. Lett. 46, 268–271 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063785020030207
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063785020030207