<p>This thesis concerns the growth and magnetic properties of thin films and multilayers. The samples were grown by magnetron sputtering, and characterized structurally mainly by x-ray diffraction and reflectivity. The magnetic characterization of the multilayers was done by magneto-optical Kerr technique, SQUID magnetometry and, in two samples, by neutron reflectometry.</p><p>Arrays of small elements of polycrystalline permalloy (FeNi alloy with 19 wt% Fe) are of interest as a component in non-volatile magnetic random access memories (MRAM). Here the shape dependence of the domain structure in such elements was studied by magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and in thin ring magnets the 'onion' state could be seen for the first time. Also, by post-annealing in hydrogen atmosphere the number of domains decreased in each element due to enhanced relaxation and defect reduction.</p><p>Furthermore, permalloy-based anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in read heads are nowadays replaced by material combinations that have a giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect. In this work Fe/V(001) and Fe_0.82Ni_0.18/V(001) superlattices, i.e. single-crystal-like multilayers, were investigated. These systems showed much smaller GMR effect compared to the Fe/Cr system. However, by introducing Ni into the Fe layers the magnetic anisotropy and the interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) decreased, thereby increasing the sensitivity, which is a key property for a magnetic sensor. The interface region showed a reduced magnetic moment, and the influence of the structural quality was modelled and investigated theoretically in the Fe_0.82Ni_0.18/V case. Also, in the Fe(2-3 ML)/V(x ML) superlattices (ML=monolayers) the transition temperature from long-range magnetic order to paramagnetic order oscillated with the V layer thickness (x) as a result of the oscillatory behaviour of the IEC.</p><p>The introduction of hydrogen in the non-magnetic layers of, for example, Fe/V(001) superlattices is a way to tune the IEC strength. Here the tuning was used as a tool to study the magnetic order in a low-dimensional magnet. At the critical hydrogen concentration <H/V>=0.022 the Fe layers in an Fe(2 ML)/V(13 ML) superlattice became decoupled. Then the system behaved as a two-dimensional Ising magnet with a finite ordering temperature of about 60 K.</p>

This thesis concerns the growth and magnetic properties of thin films and multilayers. The samples were grown by magnetron sputtering, and characterized structurally mainly by x-ray diffraction and reflectivity. The magnetic characterization of the multilayers was done by magneto-optical Kerr technique, SQUID magnetometry and, in two samples, by neutron reflectometry. Arrays of small elements of polycrystalline permalloy (FeNi alloy with 19 wt% Fe) are of interest as a component in non-volatile magnetic random access memories (MRAM). Here the shape dependence of the domain structure in such elements was studied by magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and in thin ring magnets the 'onion' state could be seen for the first time. Also, by post-annealing in hydrogen atmosphere the number of domains decreased in each element due to enhanced relaxation and defect reduction. Furthermore, permalloy-based anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in read heads are nowadays replaced by material combinations that have a giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect. In this work Fe/V(001) and Fe0.82Ni0.18/V(001) superlattices, i.e. single-crystal-like multilayers, were investigated. These systems showed much smaller GMR effect compared to the Fe/Cr system. However, by introducing Ni into the Fe layers the magnetic anisotropy and the interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) decreased, thereby increasing the sensitivity, which is a key property for a magnetic sensor. The interface region showed a reduced magnetic moment, and the influence of the structural quality was modelled and investigated theoretically in the Fe0.82Ni0.18/V case. Also, in the Fe(2-3 ML)/V(x ML) superlattices (ML=monolayers) the transition temperature from long-range magnetic order to paramagnetic order oscillated with the V layer thickness (x) as a result of the oscillatory behaviour of the IEC. The introduction of hydrogen in the non-magnetic layers of, for example, Fe/V(001) superlattices is a way to tune the IEC strength. Here the tuning was used as a tool to study the magnetic order in a low-dimensional magnet. At the critical hydrogen concentration &lt;H/V&gt;=0.022 the Fe layers in an Fe(2 ML)/V(13 ML) superlattice became decoupled. Then the system behaved as a two-dimensional Ising magnet with a finite ordering temperature of about 60 K.

Since the first discovery of amorphous alloys in 1960, researchers have explored many unique mechanical, magnetic, and optical characteristics of such materials for potential applications. Up to now, well-developed processes, such as rapid quenching, sputtering, evaporation, pulse laser deposition, etc, have been applied for different applications in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Due to the lack of ordered structure, amorphous alloys can bear a high stress in the elastic region. Their plastic deformation stability is also of interest and has been widely studied. The shear-band characteristic, a kind of inhomogeneous deformation mechanism, dominates the deformation after yielding at room temperature. While a shear band nucleate, its propagation usually cannot be arrested or stopped. In other words, the occurrence of matured shear bands needs to be prevented. There are two major approaches in this aspect. The first is to increase the material yield strength so as to delay the shear band nucleation. Another is to incorporate intrinsic or extrinsic particles so as to absorb the kinetic energy of shear bands in the amorphous matrix. In this study, we utilize three strategies to control the propagation of shear bands in thin film metallic glasses (TFMGs): sub-Tg annealing, the addition of strong element in solute form, and the introduction of strong nanocrystalline layers. For sub-Tg annealing, the base alloy system is Zr69Cu31, with a base film hardness of 5.1 GPa measured by nanoindentation. After annealing, the hardness exhibits ~30% increase. Without the occurrence of the phase transformation, as confirmed by X-ray diffraction, the possible reaction during sub-Tg annealing is attributed to structural relaxation, not crystallization. The full width at half maximum of the X-ray peak exhibits a decreasing trend in the using X-ray and transmission electron microscopy diffraction, meaning the excess free volumes forming during vapor-to-solid deposition process would be annihilated by localized atomic re-arrangement. Moreover, the formation of medium-ordering-range clusters was confirmed utilizing high-resolution transmission electronic microscopy. The denser amorphous structure leads to the increment of hardness. For the addition of Ta in Zr55Cu31Ti14, sputtering provides a wide glass forming range with solubility of Ta approaching ~75 at%. With increasing Ta content, the elastic modulus and hardness increase slowly. A steep rise occurs at ~50 at% of Ta. Up to 75 at% of Ta, the elastic modulus and hardness approaches 140 GPa and 10.0 GPa, respectively (100% increment). Up to now, Ta-rich TFMGs exhibit the highest elastic modulus and hardness among all amorphous alloys fabricated using vapor deposition techniques. The irregular increase is attributed to the formation of Ta-Ta bonding. A large quantity of Ta bonds would lead to the formation of Ta-rich nanoclusters, drastically decreasing the strain rate while shear band propagates under nanoindentation and microcompression tests. The introduction of nanocrystalline Ta layers can not only effectively enhance the yield strength but also serve as the absorber for the kinetic energy of shear bands, revealing ductility in the microcompression test.

The most widely used transparent conducting thin films, Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO), will surly encounter difficulties for Indium is naturally limited and its price rising fast very year. Searching for Indium free transparent conducting oxides (TCO) becomes one of the important issues in this field. Among of which, ZnO:Al (AZO) is the most import candidate and is used, now, in photovoltaic industry. In the future, flexible substrates are necessary, therefore, to preventing degrading of TCO crystal by repeatedly bending, TCO should be produced in amorphous or nano-crystal types. By properly doping of Ti in ZnO lattice, a certain form of amorphous-nanocrystal mixture films can be obtained at room temperature. Unfortunately, amorphous or nano-crystal with poor crystal structure suppress the electric conduction. Growth films at few hundred degrees may enhance the crystallization, however, the flexible substrate, such as PET, can only sustained temperature lower than 150oC. In this project, an UV assisted film growth technique is used to study the effect of the UV assistant growth on films properties. The aim of this study is wish to grow films with better crystallization at lower growth temperature. Physical properties of films are investigated by the transmittance spectroscopy (N&K analyzer), X-ray dffractometer (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). It is found that the optical band gap increases and shows an obvious blue shifting due to the short range order in the present films. All films exhibits high level of transparency in the visible range. The grazing angle incident X-ray diffraction (GID XRD) indicates that high ratio of amorphous phase for films grown at high working gas pressure and low RF power. For certain growth conditions, pure amorphous films can be obtained. Oppositely, films grown at low working gas pressure and high RF power manifest crystal growth along all directions resulting shifting and broadening in XRD peaks. Higher the Ti doping levels higher the amorphous ratio. By gown films at higher temperatures, (002) peak dominates the GID XRD measurements. It is found that the 266nm UV assisted growth enhances crystallization and roughness of films at relatively low temperature, lower than the highest sustainable temperature of PET.

To smooth the substrate depositions of DC magnetron sputter (MS), such that the supplementary electrical and mechanical adjustment efforts can be alleviated, a refinement scheme that can be applied directly to the existing DC MS will be introduced. By properly controlling the magnetic and electric fields inside the vacuum chamber, trajectories of those atoms that are sputtered from the target surface can be more spread out. In addition, with the resultant higher plasma density, chance of collisions among the sputtered atoms and those Ar ions in the plasma will also be increased, hence the resulting distributions of target atoms deposited on the substrate surface will certainly be evened out. To further confirm such concepts, a rational emulating process that can explore both the atom sputtering process from the target and those collisions at the chamber with different three-dimensional magnetic and electric field environments is also developed. Thus the associated performance investigations on the DC MS with different magnetron arrangements can then be conveniently carried out.

This thesis investigates the effects of varying the crystallographic orientations of epitaxial ZnO thin films to produce functional ZnO P-N diodes. First, with the atomic layer deposition (ALD), a p-type m-oriented ZnO epitaxial layer is deposited onto an also m-oriented Al2O3 substrate. Then an n-type ZnO layer, mostly textured along the c-axis, is grown atop to form a P-N diode by RF sputtering method. The Hall Effect of the m-ZnO thin film is measured separately at various temperatures and magnetic fields in Quantum Design¡¦s Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) to determine the nature of the charge carriers. The m-oriented ZnO films are found to be p-type semiconductors, with carrier concentration approximately ~ 1021 1/cm3, which falls in the category of highly-doped degenerate semiconductor. In order to further prove that these films are indeed p-type, naturally n-type c-textured ZnO films are put on the m-films at room temperature by magnetron sputtering to see if the current-voltage (I-V) curves do follow the P-N junction characteristics. In optimizing the c-ZnO film quality and reducing the effects of the junction defects, the gas-mixture ratio between argon and oxygen was varied to compare for the changes in the performance of the resulted materials and devices. X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the crystallographic orientations and the general qualities of the samples by 2£c-£s scan, rocking scan, £p-scan and pole figure measurement. Understanding of the P-N diode is acquired through the analysis of the leakage current and the quantum tunneling phenomena as manifested in the I-V characteristics.

In this study, the reactive rf magnetron sputtering was used to deposit zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films on SiO2/Si substrate at room temperature. The thermal treatment procedure was carried out to improve the luminescence characteristics of ZnO thin films. The physical characteristics of ZnO thin films with different post annealing process were obtained by the analyses of XRD and SEM. The electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA) was used to analyze the chemical states of ZnO thin films. In optical properties, the photoluminescence spectrometer was used to measure the photoluminescence characteristics (PL). According to the results of experiments, the chemical states of ZnO thin films were changed after different post annealing. The photoluminescence characteristics were obtained at different wavelength, and the results indicated that they were affected by the chemical states of ZnO thin films. With 900¢J annealing, the strongest green emission and UV emission intensity can be obtained under the air ambient and the oxygen ambient, respectively. The reason was due to the variation of the proportion of oxygen vacancies and O-Zn bond within the ZnO thin films.

By integrating Nanotechnology and MEMS technology, this thesis aims to research a flexural-plate wave (FPW) sensor for testing Immunoglobulin E (IgE) concentration in blood serum, a significant index for the diagnosis of allergies. The traditional methods of blood assay are time-consuming and costly, and its average accuracy of only 60-70 percent. After compare the major four kinds of acoustic sensor, the FPW sensor demonstrates a high accuracy, high sensitivity, low operation frequency, low diagnosis time and low cost. This thesis utilizes a reactive RF sputter system to deposite the piezoelectric ZnO thin film. To obtain the high C-axis orientation (002) characteristic of ZnO membrane, many parameters such as substrate temperature, Ar/O2 ratio and RF power have been adjusted and optimized during the sputtering process. The effects of varied parameters will be investigated and analysis by using SEM or XRD facilities. In this study, we combined the high figure-of-merits ZnO deposition techniques and single-side anisotropic silicon etch process to implement the process integration of FPW device. Finally, this research has demonstrated a 50-60MHz center frequency can be extracted from such silicon-based FPW microsensor.

Aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films were deposited on SiO2/Si substrates using the reactive RF magnetron sputtering in this thesis. By means of the analysis of XRD, SEM, TEM and AFM, the optimal deposition conditions of highly C-axis oriented AlN films were obtained with RF power of 190W, sputtering pressure of 3mTorr, nitrogen concentration (N2/N2+Ar) of 30%, and substrate temperature of 400¢J. The characteristics of films annealed at temperature range from 600¢J to 1150¢J with N2 flow for 2 hours has been studied. Experimental results reveal that the films retain the high quality up to 800¢J. But when the temperature above 1000¢J, AlN films will be oxided to AlO:N. In addition, the interdigital transducers (IDTs) were fabricated on the films annealed at 800¢J for 2 hours to study the characteristics of SAW devices. The results show that the central frequency, insertion loss and phase velocity of SAW were 182.25 MHz, -12.95 dB and 5824 m/sec, respectively. At the same time, we try to match the impedence of devices and improve the frequency response by using a simulation program. After the impedence was matched, the insertion are not strongly improved but the frequency response and closed-in sidelobe rejection exhibit better. The effects of temperature on the SAW devices show that the central frequency almost does not shift when the temperature increases. But the insertion loss slightly increases with the temperature increased, the variation is about -0.02 dB/¢J.

Aluminum doped zinc oxide AZO has been studied for 20 years. It can improve thin films¡¦ thermal stability and transparency in visible range .However AZO is not as good as ITO in conductivity and transparency, that¡¦s why the application of AZO is only limited in few fields. This is because the nature limit of ZnO. Because part of doped Al forms Al2O3 instead of sits on Zn sites, that enhances light and carriers scattering and suppresses the optical transparency and electric conductivity. This study is plane to take advantage of amorphous properties, that may be achieved try grown films at liquid Nitrogen temperature, in which the distribution of Al and Zn will be very uniform and the solubility of Al will be high. ZnO:Al thin films is grown on glass substrates at low temperature by Radio frequency magnetron sputtering system. Low-temperature deposition is done in order to deposit amorphous thin films (ceramic targets ZnO contained 2wt.% Al2O3). The Al3+ in place of Zn2+ should be uniformly distributed in the thin films because of amorphous structure. It expects to find the best deposition condition under a fixed target-to-substrate distance (10cm) by varying growth, such as the deposition mode, PF plasma power and working pressure. AFM, XRD (grazing incident x-ray diffraction) and N&K analyzer were used to measure the thin surface morphology, structure, thickness and transmittance, respectively. The colors of the thin films are very different dependent on the modes of deposition. The low sputtering rate by lower RF power and high working pressure is the key to successfully grow amorphous ZnO:Al films. The amorphous ZnO:Al thin films (a-5) are deposited under 100W of RF power and 50mTorr of working pressure. The transmittance of the assembly of ZnO:Al thin films/glass substrate is the same as glass substrates which inducates the transmittance of films is far above 90%. However, the amorphous ZnO:Al thin films are poor conductor . We also tried to improve it by the post-annealing of ZnO:Al thin films in 2% hydrogen atmosphere. It is found to be not successful.