In-situ HEED structure analysis of AlNx films grown by the simultaneous use of a radical beam source and ICB technique

A reactive ionized cluster beam technique (RICB) which was composed of a conventional ICB source and a radical beam source has been used to deposit stable and metastable polycrystalline AlN_x (0≤x≤1) films. Using in-situ high energy electron diffraction (HEED) at grazing incidence geometry, crystallographic properties such as structure, preferred orientation and interplanar dspacing values were determined and the relation to deposition parameters investigated. It could be shown that the simultaneous use of the ICB technique and a radical beam source to separately control the kinetic energy of the Al ions and the dissociation rate of molecular nitrogen, allows AlN films to be deposited with variable composition and crystal structures. In-situ HEED used in the transmission mode is an effective tool to investigate the crystallography of growing compound films such as AlN_x.