Optical and nano-mechanical characterization of c-axis oriented AlN film

This paper reports the temperature effects on the optical properties of metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy (MOCVD) grown c-axis oriented AlN epilayer thin film studied by in-situ high-temperature spectroscopic ellipsometry. The crystal structure and the quality of the grown AlN epilayer film are analyzed using X-ray Diffraction and rocking curve techniques, respectively. Modelling of the ellipsometric data revealed that the uniaxial anisotropic refractive indices of the c-axis oriented film in the directions n(parallel to) and n(perpendicular to) increased from 2.50 to 2.59 and 2.32 to 2.37, respectively with the increase in temperature from 223 to 573 K. The thermo-optic coefficients were evaluated to be around 10(-5). Nano-mechanical characterization of this film showed an average hardness of 19.4 GPa at ambient temperature, which is higher than a-axis oriented AlN film. The average surface free energy of the synthesized film as evaluated from contact angle measurements is reported to be around 36.22 +/- 0.64 mN/m. These results are highly relevant for a better understanding of c-axis oriented AlN-based materials in high-temperature ultraviolet optical devices.