Nanometer-Scale Composite Structures Formed by Simultaneous Oblique Sputter-Deposition of Two Materials from Different Directions

Abstract

Oblique depositlon(OD) provides an attractive anisotropic structure In nm-scale as a promising host structure to form anisotropic nm-scale composites(ANSC). Among a variety of possible methods to introduce a guest material Into the host structure of OD, we have attempted simultaneous oblique deposition of a guest and a host material from two different directions. The computer simulation for ballistic deposition, which had greatly contributed to the understanding of the morphology evolution in OD, has been carried out again here to design possible ANSC structures and to survey their variations. A typical ANSC structure obtained here is a composite of slender clusters of the guest and the host materials, which can be regarded as an anisotropic version of the well-known isotropic structures of the metal-insulator or semiconductor-insulator cermets for magneto-optical or nonlinear optical applications. This appears when the host and the guest materials are deposited from the directions of the same polar angle of 70° but from the reverse azimuthal directions. In accordance with this result, a specially designed sputtering apparatus has been constructed. Structures and optical anisotropy of the films of several composites' systems such as ZnTe-SiO₂ and Cu-SiO₂ formed by this apparatus have indicated that our attempt has hit the mark.