A Thin Silver-Based Hafnium Oxide (Hfo2/Ag/Hfo2) Layer Deposition Technique and Laser Optical and Surface Morphology Characterization
M. Asif, M. Ramzan, H. Ullah, M. Imran, G. Naz, F. Fahim and A.R. Khan
We have developed a silver-based hafnium oxide (HfO2/Ag/HfO2) thin film deposition device through electron beam evaporation on a commercial glass substrate at various substrate temperatures. An atomic force microscope (AFM) was used to investigate the surface characteristics of developed HfO2/Ag/HfO2 tri-layer device and optical properties were investigated by using dual beam spectrophotometer. The SiN AFM tip was illuminated by blue (488 nm) or green (532 nm) laser light. Overall transmittance values changed from 40 to 80%, 56 to 74% and 25 to 100% in ultraviolet-visible-infrared (UV-VIS-IR) regions when the glass substrate was at room temperature, 100oC and 150oC, respectively. Percent- age reflectance values were found to be almost constant when the glass substrate was at room temperature and 100oC. Further increases in the glass substrate temperature up to 150oC caused reflectance of the thin film HfO2/Ag/HfO2 film to increase by around 70% in the VIS-IR regions.
Keywords: Laser diode, atomic force microscope (AFM), silver-based hafnium oxide, HfO2/Ag/HfO2, tri-layer thin films, optical properties, surface morphology