Abstract
RuO$_2$ thin films are prepared by RF magnetron reactive sputtering and their characteristics of crystallization, microstructure, surface roughness and resistivity are studied with various $O_2$/ (Ar+O$_2$) ratios and substrate temperatures. As $O_2$/(Ar+O$_2$) ratio decreases and substrate temperature increases, the preferred growing plane of RuO$_2$ thin films are changed from (110) to (101) plane. With increase of the $O_2$/(Ar+O$_2$) ratio from 20% to 50%, the surface roughness and the resistivity of RuO$_2$ thin films increase from 2.38nm to 7.81 nm, and from 103.6 $\mu$$\Omega$-cm to 227 $\mu$$\Omega$-cm, respectively, but the deposition rate decreases from 47 nm/min to 17 nm/min. On the other hand, as the substrate temperature increases from room temperature to 500 $^{\circ}C$, resistivity decreases from 210.5 $\mu$$\Omega$-cm to 93.7 $\mu$$\Omega$-cm. RuO$_2$ thin film deposited at 300 $^{\circ}C$ shows a excellent surface roughness of 2.38 nm. As the annealing temperature increases in the range between 400 $^{\circ}C$ and 650 $^{\circ}C$, the resistivity decreases because of the improvement of crystallinity. We find that RuO$_2$ thin film deposited at 20% of $O_2$/(Ar+O$_2$) ratio and 300 t of substrate temperature shows excellent combination of surface smoothness and low resistivity so that it is well Qualified for bottom electrodes for ferroelectric thin films.