Effect of High-Temperature Annealing Heat Treatment to Microstructure of Aluminium Nitride on Sapphire Substrate

Article history: Received 17 January 2019 Received in revised form 26 February 2019 Accepted 3 March 2019 Available online 13 April 2019 Aluminium Nitride (AIN) is classified in the 3rd nitride ceramic materials and able to emit the lights at shorter wavelength of 210 nm with high band gap up to 6 eV. In addition, with thermal conductivity up to 140 W/mK has made this material in demand for electronic devices applications such as light emitting diode, laser diode and photodetector for the ultraviolet region. However, previous researchers have confirmed the existence of defects in the microstructure of AlN that affected the properties of this material during the growth process. Hence, high-temperature annealing heat treatment is utilized as one of the methods to cure the problems of AlN thin film. Therefore, this paper is about to identify the effects of high-temperature annealing heat treatment on the microstructure of AlN. The changes on microstructure were observed through Transmission Electron Microscopy after the annealing process. The results showed an increase of the annealing temperature contributed to the reduction of defects in the microstructure of AlN.