Abstract A hybrid thin film deposition system was built by combining physical vapor deposition (PVD) with atomic layer deposition (ALD) without breaking high vacuum, which was achieved by a chamber-in-chamber design. The vacuum is better than 1 × 10−5 Pa during the entire sample transfer process between the ALD and PVD chambers. The Al-Al2O3 multilayers synthesized by the PVD-ALD integrated system consist of ALD Al2O3 sublayers between pure PVD Al sublayers. The Al2O3 sublayers, with incremental thickness of 1 nm from 1 to 10 nm, effectively interrupted the grain growth of the ~250 nm thick Al sublayers. Native surface oxide formation on the PVD deposited pure Al sublayers was circumvented by keeping the substrate in high vacuum between processing steps. The pure Al sublayers are constituted of equiaxed grains with no epitaxial or texture relationship with the neighboring layers. The Al grain boundaries are parallel to the film growth direction and extend the height of each Al sublayer, to form a brick-and-mortar type microstructure. In this system, ALD allows precise control of the thickness of each ultrathin Al2O3 layer, to thicknesses below the native surface oxide thickness of pure Al, and avoids further natural oxidation through the low-oxygen environment of the PVD-ALD system.

中文翻译：

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通过规避自然氧化合成具有单层氧化物厚度控制的模型 Al-Al2O3 多层系统

摘要 在不破坏高真空的情况下，将物理气相沉积（PVD）与原子层沉积（ALD）相结合，构建了一种混合薄膜沉积系统，该系统通过室中室设计实现。在 ALD 和 PVD ​​室之间的整个样品转移过程中，真空度优于 1 × 10-5 Pa。PVD-ALD 集成系统合成的 Al-Al2O3 多层膜由纯 PVD ​​Al 亚层之间的 ALD Al2O3 亚层组成。Al2O3 亚层，从 1 到 10 nm 的增量厚度为 1 nm，有效地中断了~250 nm 厚的 Al 亚层的晶粒生长。通过在处理步骤之间将基板保持在高真空中，可以避免在 PVD ​​沉积的纯铝子层上形成原生表面氧化物。纯铝亚层由等轴晶粒构成，与相邻层没有外延或织构关系。Al晶界平行于薄膜生长方向并延伸每个Al亚层的高度，形成砖和砂浆型微观结构。在该系统中，ALD 允许精确控制每个超薄 Al2O3 层的厚度，使其厚度低于纯 Al 的天然表面氧化物厚度，并避免通过 PVD-ALD 系统的低氧环境进一步自然氧化。