Influence of the growth atmosphere on the properties of AlN grown by plasma-assisted pulsed laser deposition

We have grown highly oriented aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films on Si (100) substrates by using pulsed laser deposition from sintering AlN targets. Three different growth environments, vacuum, nitrogen gas, and nitrogen plasma, have been used in order to investigate the effect of the ambient on the film quality. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry suggests that the N/Al ratio increases when the AlN film is grown in a nitrogen-contained ambient. Cathodoluminescence study implies the decrease of oxygen content in the film grown in a nitrogen plasma ambient.