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    Evaluation of surface cleaning procedures for CTGS substrates for SAW technology with XPS
    (Basel : MDPI, 2017) Brachmann, Erik; Seifert, Marietta; Oswald, Steffen; Menzel, Siegfried B.; Gemming, Thomas
    A highly efficient and reproducible cleaning procedure of piezoelectric substrates is essential in surface acoustic waves (SAW) technology to fabricate high-quality SAW devices, especially for new applications such SAW sensors wherein new materials for piezoelectric substrates and interdigital transducers are used. Therefore, the development and critical evaluation of cleaning procedures for each material system that is under consideration becomes crucial. Contaminants like particles or the presence of organic/inorganic material on the substrate can dramatically influence and alter the properties of the thin film substrate composite, such as wettability, film adhesion, film texture, and so on. In this article, focus is given to different cleaning processes like SC-1 and SC-2, UV-ozone treatment, as well as cleaning by first-contact polymer Opticlean, which are applied for removal of contaminants from the piezoelectric substrate Ca 3 TaGa 3 Si 2 O 14 . By means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the presence of the most critical contaminants such as carbon, sodium, and iron removed through different cleaning procedures were studied and significant differences were observed between the outcomes of these procedures. Based on these results, a two-step cleaning process, combining SC-1 at a reduced temperature at 30 ∘ C instead of 80 ∘ C and a subsequent UV-ozone cleaning directly prior to deposition of the metallization, is suggested to achieve the lowest residual contamination level.
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    Study of TiAl thin films on piezoelectric CTGS substrates as an alternative metallization system for high-temperature SAW devices
    (Rio de Janeiro : Elsevier, 2021) Seifert, Marietta; Lattner, Eric; Menzel, Siegfried B.; Oswald, Steffen; Gemming, Thomas
    Ti/Al multilayer films with a total thickness of 200 nm were deposited on the high-temperature (HT) stable piezoelectric Ca3TaGa3Si2O14 (CTGS) as well as on thermally oxidized Si (SiO2/Si) reference substrates. The Ti–Al films were characterized regarding their suitability as an alternative metallization for electrodes in HT surface acoustic wave devices. These films provide the advantage of significantly lower costs and in addition also a significantly lower density as compared to Pt, which allows a greater flexibility in device design. To realize a thermal stability of the films, AlNO cover as well as barrier layers at the interface to the substrate were applied. The samples were annealed for 10 h at up to 800 °C in high vacuum (HV) and at 600 °C in air and analyzed regarding the γ-TiAl phase formation, film morphology, and possible degradation. The Ti/Al films were prepared either by magnetron sputtering or by e-beam evaporation and the different behavior arising from the different deposition method was analyzed and discussed. For the evaporated Ti/Al films, AlNO barriers with a lower O content were used to evaluate the influence of the composition of the AlNO on the HT stability. The sputter-deposited Ti/Al films showed an improved γ-TiAl phase formation and HT stability (on SiO2/Si up to 800 °C in HV and 600 °C in air, on CTGS with a slight oxidation after annealing at 800 °C in HV) as compared to the evaporated samples, which were only stable up to 600 °C in HV and in air.
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    XPS chemical state analysis of sputter depth profiling measurements for annealed TiAl-SiO2 and TiAl-W layer stacks
    (Chichester [u.a.] : Wiley, 2020) Oswald, Steffen; Lattner, Eric; Seifert, Marietta
    For the application of surface acoustic wave sensors at high temperatures, both a high-temperature stable piezoelectric substrate and a suitable metallization for the electrodes are needed. Our current attempt is to use TiAl thin films as metallization because this material is also known to be high temperature stable. In this study, Ti/Al multilayers and Ti-Al alloy layers were prepared in combination with an SiO2 cover layer or a W barrier layer at the interface to the substrate (thermally oxidized Si or Ca3TaGa3Si2O14) as an oxidation protection. To form the high-temperature stable γ-TiAl phase and to test the thermal stability of the layer systems, thermal treatments were done in vacuum at several temperatures. We used X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) sputter depth-profiling to investigate the film composition and oxidation behavior. In this paper, we demonstrate how the semiautomatic peak fitting can help to extract beside the elemental information also the chemical information from the measured depth profiles. © 2020 The Authors. Surface and Interface Analysis published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd