Accurate characterization of SiO2 thin films using surface acoustic waves

IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferroelectr Freq Control. 2015 Apr;62(4):736-43. doi: 10.1109/TUFFC.2014.006921.

Abstract

We have investigated the acoustic properties of silicon dioxide thin films. Therefore, we determined the phase velocity dispersion of LiNbO3 substrate covered with SiO2 deposited by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and a physical vapor deposition (PVD) process using differential delay lines and laser ultrasonic method. The density p and the elastic constants (c11 and c44) can be extracted by fitting corresponding finite element simulations to the phase velocities within an accuracy of at least +4%. Additionally, we propose two methods to improve the accuracy of the phase velocity determination by dealing with film thickness variation of the PVD process.