Elsevier

Solid State Sciences

Volume 5, Issue 4, April 2003, Pages 587-589
Solid State Sciences

Optical recording characteristics of tin nitride thin films prepared by an atmospheric pressure halide chemical vapor deposition

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1293-2558(03)00051-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Optical recording characteristics of tin nitride films, which were deposited onto quartz substrate by means of an atmospheric pressure halide chemical vapor deposition, were examined using a YAG laser with 532 nm of 5 mW. From the AFM micrograph observation it was confirmed that spot-like humps appeared on the tin nitride film surface where laser beam was irradiated. Taking into account of the fact that the reflectance of the films increased markedly in the range of 330–1200 nm after light irradiation, the humps are explained in terms of the thermal decomposition of tin nitride to β-tin with the aid of laser beam.

Introduction

Recently, great interests have been paid to apply metal nitride thin films for optical devices as well as electronic devices. This is because they are stable and have a variety of band gaps from infrared to ultraviolet depending on metal ions. Amongst the metal nitride films we have prepared by an atmospheric pressure halide vapor deposition (AP-HCVD) using metal halides [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] as a source tin nitride thin films was found to show anomalous light reflection under laser-light irradiation, which is possible to apply for recording media. This paper, therefore, deals with the results of the investigation on image recording on tin nitride films by laser beam.

Section snippets

Experimental

Thin films of tin nitride were prepared by AP-HCVD. Each of SnCl2 with a purity of 99.999% and NH3 vapors was introduced into a horizontal type hot-wall quartz reactor from two independent gas lines. SnCl2 was evaporated at a temperature of 523 K, and provided into growth zone using purified H2. Tin nitride films were deposited onto quartz substrate by the reaction of SnCl2 with NH3 at 948 K under atmospheric pressure. Details of the growth condition were summarized in Table 1. The AP-HCVD

Results and discussion

Fig. 1 shows the XRD pattern of the as-deposited thin film prepared under the condition listed in Table 1, in which the film thickness was 850 nm, along with that of the film annealed at 973 K. As is seen in Fig. 1a, sharp lines are observed at 2θ=17.0, 27.7, 32.7, 34.2 and 57.2°. They are assigned to the diffractions from (001), (100), (101), (002) and (200) of SnNx with hexagonal structure, respectively [10], which indicates that the film consist of polycrystalline tin nitride with strong

Conclusions

It is found that the tin nitride thin films, prepared by the AP-HCVD technique, are decomposed to β-tin by irradiation of YAG laser with 532 nm of 5 mW. After light irradiation, the humps appeared on the surface of tin nitride film, and the reflectance of the films increased markedly in the range of 330–1200 nm. It is presumed that the tin nitride films are feasible to apply for write-once recording media.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science through a Grants-in-aid for Scientific Research (A) No. 13305047 and the Nissan Science Foundation.

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