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Growth and Characterization of Polyimide-Supported AlN Films for Flexible Surface Acoustic Wave Devices

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Abstract

Highly c-axis oriented aluminum nitride (AlN) films, which can be used in flexible surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, were successfully deposited on polyimide (PI) substrates by direct current reactive magnetron sputtering without heating. The sputtering power, film thickness, and deposition pressure were optimized. The characterization studies show that at the optimized conditions, the deposited AlN films are composed of columnar grains, which penetrate through the entire film thickness (~2 μm) and exhibit an excellent (0002) texture with a full width at half maximum value of the rocking curve equal to 2.96°. The film surface is smooth with a root mean square value of roughness of 3.79 nm. SAW prototype devices with a center frequency of about 520 MHz and a phase velocity of Rayleigh wave of about 4160 m/s were successfully fabricated using the AlN/PI composite structure. The obtained results demonstrate that the highly c-axis oriented AlN films with a smooth surface and low stress can be produced on relatively rough, flexible substrates, and this composite structure can be possibly used in flexible SAW devices.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51371103 and 51231004), National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2010CB832905) and National Hi-tech (R&D) project of China (Grant Nos. 2012AA03A706, 2013AA030801), and the Research Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (No 113007A).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Qi Li, Hongyan Liu, Gen Li, Fei Zeng & Feng Pan

  2. Institute of Thin Film Physics and Applications, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Sensor Technology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Jingting Luo

  3. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Film Electronic and Communication Devices, School of Electronics Information Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China

    Lirong Qian

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  1. Qi Li
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  2. Hongyan Liu
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  3. Gen Li
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Correspondence to Fei Zeng.

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Li, Q., Liu, H., Li, G. et al. Growth and Characterization of Polyimide-Supported AlN Films for Flexible Surface Acoustic Wave Devices. J. Electron. Mater. 45, 2702–2709 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-016-4420-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-016-4420-x

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