ТЕХНОЛОГИЯ ВОЗДЕЙСТВИЯ ПОТОКОМ БЫСТРЫХ НЕЙТРАЛОВ НА ТОНКИЕ ПЛЁНКИ ZnO И ВАКУУМНЫЙ ТЕХНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ КОМПЛЕКС ДЛЯ ЕЁ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ
Authors: Шашин Д.Е. , Сушенцов Н.И. , Тришина Е.В. 
Published: February 2025

Данная статья посвящена разработке технологии воздействия потоком нейтралов на тонкие плёнки ZnO. Описано технологическое оборудование и последовательность операций для реализации воздействия на тонкие плёнки ZnO потоком нейтралов. Разработан источник нейтралов новой оригинальной конструкции и определены его выходные характеристики. Изучено влияние потока нейтральных частиц на основные оптические характеристики тонких плёнок.

Introduction. The bombardment of thin film by particle beam during deposition has features associated with the accumulation of a positive space charge due to the use of ion sources. The charge causes a rise in the amount of defects in the crystal structure of the film that challenges its further usage. To reduce the negative effect of the space charge, compensated ion beams or high-frequency plasma systems are typically used. An alternative method is to bombard the film with a neutral particles beam. In this case, there is no need to neutralize the space charge. The increase in the charge magnitude on the growing film occurs only due to the process of secondary electron emission. So that, the potential of the film does not get critically high. Recent publications show that bombardment of films of wide-gap semiconductors and dielectrics to fluxes by neutral particles beam allows to increase the electrical and optical properties of the resulting product in comparison with bombardment by ion beams or high-frequency plasma, because there is a decrease in the amount of surface damages caused by the impact of beam charge. Currently, one of the wide-gap semiconductors most widely used in optical engineering is zinc oxide (ZnO) and thin films based on it. In this regard, development of technology and equipment for implementing the bombardment of thin ZnO films by a fast neutral particle beam for cleaning, etching and assisting in the process of film deposition is extremely topical for practical applications. The aim of the research is to develop a technology for bombarding the ZnO films during deposition by neutral particle beam and to create a vacuum technological complex for implementing this technology. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: development of a vacuum complex that allows in a single technological cycle to form thin ZnO films with simultaneous bombardment of the growing film by the neutral particle beam; development a source of fast neutral particle beam of a new original design and determination of its output characteristics; production of a series of samples of thin ZnO films at the bombardment by the neutral particle beam and studying the effect of the bombardment on the main optical characteristics. Conclusions on the research. A vacuum technological complex has been developed, which allows, simultaneously with the process of magnetron sputtering, to bombard the growing film by a beam of fast neutral particles. A source of fast neutral particles of a new original design has been developed. The source is able to operate stably at a pressure of 1 Pa and a discharge current of up to 120 mA. Research findings showed that the refractive index of films, which were bombarded by neutral particle beam, was in the range from 1.76 to 1.84, while the films synthesized without bombardment had a significantly higher refractive index, from 2.25 to 2.37. Besides, assisting with an ion source leads to a decrease in the absorption coefficient of thin ZnO films from 0.023 in the absence of assistance to 0.002 at a source current of 100 mA.