Electric and pyroelectric properties of AlN thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering on Si substrate

Abstract Electric and pyroelectric properties of AlN layers deposited on Si substrates with different resistivities were investigated. The dielectric constant was found to be around 12, while the conductance determined from dc current measurements was found to be in the 10−9 to 10−10 S range. The pyroelectric measurements were performed in voltage mode using two types of IR sources: a laser diode with 800 nm wavelength and a black body at 700 °C. A peculiar behavior was observed for the signal recorded when the laser diode was used as IR source. It was found that the Si substrate is introducing a signal component, due to the photogenerated carriers, which is adding to the pyroelectric signal generated by the AlN layer. This component is strongly dependent on the resistivity of the Si substrate. For strongly doped Si (Si++) the signal generated into the substrate represents only 10% of the recorded pyroelectric voltage. For electronic grade Si the signal generated into the substrate is about 100 times larger than the pyroelectric signal generated in the AlN layer. This effect can be used as an optical amplification of the pyroelectric signal. The frequency dependence observed for the pyroelectric signal recorded when the black body is used as IR source is typical for a pyroelectric detector. A value as large as 12.4 μC m−2 K−1 was obtained for the pyroelectric coefficient using for estimation the constant signal at low modulation frequencies of the IR beam. However, the value of the pyroelectric coefficient is strongly affected by the electrical conductance of the AlN layer. As the conductance is frequency dependent it results that the value of the pyroelectric coefficient is frequency dependent, the value from above being valid only for very small frequencies of the temperature variation. It was also found that the electric and pyroelectric properties are dependent on the crystalline quality of the AlN layer.