Hexagonal to cubic crystal structure transformation during aerosol deposition of aluminum nitride

Aluminum nitride film is deposited on soda-lime glass by aerosol deposition method with helium carrier gas. The deposition rate becomes more than 10 times larger by the pre-processing of the primary powder with ball milling. By adding the heat treatment as the pre-processing, the deposition rate further increases. During the aerosol deposition some of the particles transform from wurtzite structure (hexagonal) to rock salt structure (cubic). With the ball milling as pre-processing, the peaks of rock salt structure in X-ray diffraction pattern are mostly higher than that of wurtzite structure. However with the ball milling and heat treatment as pre-processing, the peaks of wurtzite structure become higher. This means portion of rock salt structured crystallites becomes less by the pre-processing of heating. (c) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.