Synthesis of Low-Resistivity Aluminum Nitride Films Using Pulsed Laser Deposition

Low-resistivity AlN films were synthesized directly on Al2O3 (0001) substrates with simultaneous C and O doping by PLD. To characterize the AlN films, XRD, I-V measurements, and Hall measurements were performed. The XRD analysis revealed that the lattice constant of doped AlN films along the c-axis increases as the C concentration is increased. At a fixed O concentration, the resistivity of AlN films decreased as the C concentration was increased. As a result of optimizing the growth parameters, the carrier concentration reached the order of 1018 cm-3, and resistivity was on the order of 10-1 OHM cm. The carrier type of all the conductive AlN films was revealed and confirmed as n-type. 13 refs.