Property study of aluminium oxide thin films by thermal annealing

Aluminium oxide thin films have attracted significant interest in microelectronic, optical and magnetic packaging applications [1]. In addition, aluminium oxide films have been investigated in metal/oxide multilayers as alternative layer for X-ray mirrors and monochromators [2,3] and also used as insulating alternative layer in multilayers for recording heads application [4]. There are many methods has been used to deposit aluminium oxide thin films. In this work, filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) has been used to form aluminium oxide thin films, which is a promising method not only due to the characteristics of high ionization ratio and high ion energy (50 eV - 150 eV) but also the effective removing of the macroparticals and therefore resulting in high quality films. Aluminium oxide thin films were deposited by FCVA as described in detail elsewhere [5]. The films were grown on Si (100) and quartz substrates at room temperature. During deposition, the process pressure was kept at 5 × 10^-4 Torr. The grown films were then annealed in a quartz tube furnace annealed from 200°C to 900°C for 400 min in air and then cooled in a furnace in air to room temperature, respectively.