Journal
SURFACE SCIENCE
Volume 496, Issue 1-2, Pages 97-109Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/S0039-6028(01)01591-6
Keywords
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM); crystallization; oxidation; aluminum; aluminum oxide; amorphous thin films; insulating films
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Very thin (< 10 nm) aluminium-oxide films were produced by dry, thermal oxidation of a bare Al(4 3 1) substrate in the temperature range from 373 to 773 K at a partial oxygen pressure of 1.33 x 10(-4) Pa. The development of the structure of the grown oxide films has been determined from the analysis of the measured valence band (VB) spectra recorded from the oxidised metal using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Two principal components (PCs) were recognised in the 'oxide-film' upper valence band (UVB) spectra, as resolved from the measured VB spectra of the oxidised metal. On the basis of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HREM), one PC can be associated with amorphous aluminium oxide and the other PC with crystalline gamma-Al2O3. From the relative contribution of the amorphous and gamma-Al2O3 basic spectra to the resolved oxide-film UVB spectra, the development of the structure of the aluminium-oxide films as a function of temperature and time, as well as of thickness, is established. With increasing oxidation temperature a gradual transition from amorphous aluminium oxide to crystalline gamma-Al2O3 occurs, as confirmed by the HREM analysis in the present work. Up to I nm the aluminium-oxide films are to a high-degree amorphous, above this thickness the aluminium-oxide films are predominantly crystalline. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available