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Development of Thick Sc 0.2 Al 0.8 N Film for MEMS Application
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A wide bandgap, an enhanced piezoelectric coefficient, and low dielectric permittivity are some of the outstanding properties that have made ScxAl1−xN a promising material in numerous MEMS and optoelectronics applications. One of the substantial challenges of fabricating ScxAl1−xN devices is its difficulty in etching, specifically with higher scandium concentration. In this work, we have developed an experimental approach with high temperature annealing followed by a wet etching process using tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH), which maintains etching uniformity across various Sc compositions. The experimental results of etching approximately 730 nm of ScxAl1−xN (x = 0.125, 0.20, 0.40) thin films show that the etch rate decreases with increasing scandium content. Nevertheless, sidewall verticality of 85°~90° (±0.2°) was maintained for all Sc compositions. Based on these experimental outcomes, it is anticipated that this etching procedure will be advantageous in the fabrication of acoustic, photonic, and piezoelectric devices.
Due to their favorable electromechanical properties, such as high sound velocity, low dielectric permittivity and high electromechanical coupling, Aluminum Nitride (AlN) and Aluminum Scandium Nitride (Al1−xScxN) thin films have achieved widespread application in radio frequency (RF) acoustic devices. The resistance to etching at high scandium alloying, however, has inhibited the realization of devices able to exploit the highest electromechanical coupling coefficients. In this work, we investigated the vertical and lateral etch rates of sputtered AlN and Al1−xScxN with Sc concentration x ranging from 0 to 0.42 in aqueous potassium hydroxide (KOH). Etch rates and the sidewall angles were reported at different temperatures and KOH concentrations. We found that the trends of the etch rate were unanimous: while the vertical etch rate decreases with increasing Sc alloying, the lateral etch rate exhibits a V-shaped transition with a minimum etch rate at x = 0.125. By performing an etch on an 800 nm thick Al0.875Sc0.125N film with 10 wt% KOH at 65 °C for 20 min, a vertical sidewall was formed by exploiting the ratio of the 1011¯ planes and 11¯00 planes etch rates. This method does not require preliminary processing and is potentially beneficial for the fabrication of lamb wave resonators (LWRs) or other microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures, laser mirrors and Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diodes (UV-LEDs). It was demonstrated that the sidewall angle tracks the trajectory that follows the 1¯212¯ of the hexagonal crystal structure when different c/a ratios were considered for elevated Sc alloying levels, which may be used as a convenient tool for structure/composition analysis.
Sc x Al1−x N is a promising piezoelectric material for radio frequency communication applications with excellent electro-acoustic properties. However, the growth of abnormally oriented grains is widely observed in the Sc doped AlN films deposited by sputtering. In this work, for the first time, the impact of the abnormal grains in the Sc0.15Al0.85N films on the performance of bulk acoustic wave resonators and filters is systematically evaluated by both simulations and measurements. The correlation between the device performance and the abnormal grain parameters, including the density, dimension, crystal orientation, growth height and the total volume of the abnormal grains, is evaluated and quantified. Simulation results show that the total volume of all abnormal grains in the whole device is the most critical factor among the parameters. Abnormal grains with randomly distributed parameters and around 6% total volume of the film can degrade the effective coupling coefficient of the resonator from 13.6% to 11%, leading to a 10.6% decrement of the filter bandwidth. Wafer-level device characterizations and measurements are performed, and the results are consistent with the simulations. This study provides a practical method for predicting the performance of the resonators and filters with abnormal grains, and a guideline for film quality evaluation.
Sputter deposited Al(1–x)ScxN thin films with a Sc content from x = 0 to 43 at% are investigated by electron microscopy in order to study and explain the formation and growth of abnormally oriented grains (AOG). It is found that the latter did not nucleate at the interface with the substrate, but at high energy grain boundaries, at which systematically higher Sc concentrations are detected. The AOGs are thus formed during the growth of c‐textured grains. They grow faster than those, and finally protrude from the c‐textured film surface, having at their end a pyramidal shape with three facets of a hexagonal wurtzite crystal: one (0001) and two (11 2¯0) facets. Process conditions favoring less compact grain boundaries, and lower surface diffusion across grain boundaries are thought to promote nucleation of AOGs. Finally, a 4‐step growth mechanism explaining the nucleation from a Sc‐rich complexion and proliferation of AOGs with increasing film thickness is proposed.
There is continuing interest in radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices due to their ability to offer exceptional RF performance, high linearity and low power consumption. To date, there is an impressive amount of RF MEMS components such as; switches, resonators, varactors, and tunable inductors that have enabled smaller, cheaper and more efficient RF systems. RF MEMS devices contain micromachined components that have the ability to move so that a change in the mechanical state of a device will result in a change to the device’s RF properties. There are many common modes of actuation, including, but not limited to: electrostatic, magnetostatic, piezoelectric, and electrothermal actuation. Although there are attractive aspects and drawbacks to each of these technologies, this paper will focus on advances in the application of piezoelectric actuation, and in particular the use of lead zirconium titanate (PZT), for RF MEMS.
This paper presents a new fabrication technology for conducting AFM cantilevers with integrated AlN-based piezoelectric actuators. A major effort has been done for the process integration of a high quality AlN layer onto the Si cantilever together with a high wear resistance, PtSi-based conducting tip. Functional AFM devices have been successfully tested in tapping mode imaging experiments. Such type of cantilevers are of great interest for dynamic AFM applications especially for tapping or dithering mode AFMs as well as for using the piezoelectric structures as an integrated position sensor. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This paper presents a new post-CMOS-compatible integration scheme for AlN-based MEMS devices. The proposed scheme integrates molybdenum (Mo) bottom electrodes with an amorphous silicon (a-Si) sacrificial layer, which is etched using XeF2 to release the MEMS structures. This integration approach faces two potential issues, which are solved in this work: (i) poor adhesion of AlN with a-Si, and (ii) XeF2 attacking the Mo electrode during the removal of the a-Si sacrificial layer. The adhesion problem was solved by introducing a thin oxide layer between a-Si and AlN. The sidewalls of the Mo electrodes were protected by a 0.2 µm thick SiN spacer layer from the XeF2 attack. The robustness of the integration scheme was verified by fabricating an FBAR band pass filter. RF measurements on the FBAR band pass filter show that the proposed integration works well and can be utilized for other AlN-based MEMS devices in post-CMOS applications.
This paper reports on the demonstration of a new class of ultra-thin (250 nm thick) Super High Frequency (SHF) AlN piezoelectric two-port resonators and filters. A thickness field excitation scheme was employed to excite a higher order contour extensional mode of vibration in an AlN nano plate (250 nm thick) above 3 GHz and synthesize a 1.96 GHz narrow-bandwidth channel-select filter. The devices of this work are able to operate over a frequency range from 1.9 to 3.5 GHz and are employed to synthesize the highest frequency MEMS filter based on electrically self-coupled AlN contour-mode resonators. Very narrow bandwidth (~ 0.35%) and high off-band rejection (~ 35 dB) were achieved at an operating frequency of 1.96 GHz. This first prototype showed insertion loss of 11 dB, which can be improved to few dB if parasitic elements are eliminated or device capacitance is increased.
Doped AlN thin films, especially high Sc-ratio AlScN film, have been reported to significantly improve the piezoelectric properties and draw attention for high performance resonators, transducers and integrated ferroelectric applications. However, many demonstrated devices were limited by poor film stress control, abnormal oriented grains and lack of a good etching profile. Compared to costly single alloy target, co-sputtered AlScN films can benefit customized doping concentrations and provide a unique solution for high Sc-ratio AlScN film quality and device studies. In this work, the optimized co-sputtering deposition and ICP etching processes of 500 nm AlScN thin film were developed and released AlScN Lamb-wave resonators were demonstrated. The influence of stress control by changing N
2
process gas on the crystalline orientation, abnormal orientation grains, film roughness and piezoelectric property of AlScN thin films were discussed in detail. The AlScN film with a high Sc content requires a lower deposition pressure to obtain good crystalline quality. Al
0.85
Sc
0.15
N thin films with FWHM of 1.75°, an average stress of −14.5 MPa and a stress range of 156 MPa were obtained. 130 nm/min etching rate and 77° sidewall profile were achieved by optimized ICP etching of Al
0.78
Sc
0.22
N film. Lamb-wave resonators were fabricated based on both Al
0.78
Sc
0.22
N and Al
0.85
Sc
0.15
N thin films, achieving a quality factor of over 1000 at resonant frequency of approximately 300 MHz. The electromechanical coupling coefficients were improved by 152% and 80% compared to pure AlN devices.[2021-0210]
Beam-drift based flow measurement technique requires frequency matched ultrasound transmitters and receivers for determining the flow rate. Aluminum nitride (AlN) piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (PMUTs) suitable for such an application have been designed and fabricated. The bottom electrode is designed in such way that it reduces the stray capacitances, without degrading the piezoelectric properties of the AlN layer deposited on it. Frequency matching within a PMUT array and PMUTs fabricated across a wafer are challenging due to residual stress and membrane radius variations. A fabrication process to reduce the residual stress by optimizing the AlN layer deposition parameters, and membrane radius variations by optimizing Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) process, is developed in this work. The relative frequency variation (Δf*100/f) of the fabricated 7-element transmitter array is 0.5 %, and the variation between two receiver elements is 0.8%. Even though there is frequency variation across the wafer, PMUT transmitters and receivers within a reticle have matching frequencies and they can be utilized as transmitter-receiver pairs for flow measurement applications.
This paper presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducers (PMUTs) based on scandium aluminum nitride (ScxAl1-xN) thin films (x = 15%). ScAlN thin film was prepared with a dual magnetron system and patterned by a reactive ion etching system utilizing chlorine-based chemistry with an etching rate of 160 nm/min. The film was characterized by X-ray diffraction, which indicated a crystalline structure expansion compared with pure AlN and a well-aligned ScAlN film. ScAlN PMUTs were fabricated by a two-mask process based on cavity SOI wafers. ScAlN PMUTs with 50- and 40-μm diameter had a large dynamic displacement sensitivity measured in air of 25 nm/V at 17 MHz and 10 nm/V at 25 MHz, twice that of AlN PMUTs with the same dimensions. The peak displacement as a function of electrode coverage was characterized, with maximum displacement achieved with an electrode radius equal to 70% of the PMUT radius. Electrical impedance measurements indicated that the ScAlN PMUTs had 36% greater electromechanical coupling coefficient (kt² compared with AlN PMUTs. The output pressure of a 7 x 7 ScAlN PMUT array was 0.7 kPa/V at ~1.7 mm away from the array, which is approximately three times greater that of an 8 x 8 AlN PMUT array with the same element geometry and fill factor measured at the same distance. Acoustic spreading loss and PMUT insertion loss from mechanical transmit to receive were characterized with a 15 x 15 ScAlN PMUT array via hydrophone and laser Doppler vibrometer. [17509-2017]
Frequency shift, design, and fabrication issues have been investigated for the realization of 8 GHz bandpass filters based on AlN thin film bulk acoustic wave resonators. Fabrication includes well-textured AIN thin films on Pt (111) electrodes and SiO2/AlN Bragg gratings for the solidly mounted resonators. The chosen ladder filter design requires the tuning of the shunt resonators with respect to the series one. For this purpose, mass loading of the shunt resonators with aluminum (Al) and SiO2 were studied. Design simulations showed that the channel bandwidth can be doubled by shifting more than the difference of resonance and antiresonance frequency. Bandpass filters at 8 GHz were successfully fabricated with -5.5 dB insertion loss, -26 dB out-of-band rejection, 99 MHz (1.2%) +/- 0.2 dB channel bandwidth, and 224 MHz (2.8%) 3 dB bandwidth. The group delay variations within any 30 MHz channel inside the channel bandwidth amounts to < 0.2 ns. Comparisons with simulation calculations and single resonator characteristics show that each pi-section includes a parasitic series resistance and inductance.