Anomalous effect of temperature on atomic layer deposition of titanium dioxide

Abstract A strong influence of growth temperature on the deposition rate and refractive index of TiO 2 thin films, grown by atomic layer deposition from TiCl 4 and H 2 O, was observed. The growth rate increased from 0.05 to 0.09 nm per cycle while the refractive index decreased from 2.63 to 2.00 with the increase of growth temperature from 150°C to 225°C. The effect was due to crystallization processes starting at these temperatures. The substrate temperature range, in which the growth rate most significantly changed, depended on the TiCl 4 pulse time.