Abstract
RuO$_{2}$ thin films are prepared by RF magnetron reactive sputtering and their characteristics of crystallization, microstructue, surface roughness and resistivity are studied with various O$_{2}$/(Ar+O$_{2}$) ratios and substrate temperatures. As O$_{2}$/(Ar+O$_{2}$) ratio decreas 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 form 2.38nm to 7.81 nm, and from 103.6.mu..ohm.-cm to 227.mu..ohm.-cm, resepctively, but the deposition rate decreases from 47 nm/min to 17nm/min. On the other hand, as the substrate temperature increases form room temperature to 500.deg. C, resistivity decreases from 210.5.mu..ohm.-cm to 93.7.mu..ohm.-cm. RuO$_{2}$ thin film deposited at 300.deg. C shows a execellent surface roughness of 2.38nm. As the annealing temperature increases in the range between 400.deg. C and 650.deg. C, the resistivity decreases because of th improvement of crystallinity. We find that RuO$_{2}$ thin film deposited at 20% of O$_{2}$/(Ar+O$_{2}$) ratio and 300.deg. C of substrate temperature shows execellent combination of surface smoothness and low resistrivity so that it is well qualified for bottom electrodes for ferroelectric thin films.
