A study of the room-temperature oxidation of thin Al films by the optical transmission and sheet resistance measurements

(Received 27 December 1991, revised 30 March 1992, accepted 19 May 1992)

Abstract
Time-dependent room temperature oxidation of vapour deposited aluminium films has been studied by means of the changes in the optical transmission and sheet resistance measurements. An increase of both sheet resistance and optical transmittance with a tendency to saturation has been observed. Our results show that the kinetics of oxidation could be described by a model whereby an initial logarithmic oxide growth changes to an inverse logarithmic one as time progresses. Our investigation also shows evidence that freshly prepared "unoxidized" films of Al are more efficient transparent electrode materials than the oxidized films.