Rapid thermal annealing to significantly reduce delamination of silver thin film sputtered on silicon dioxide surface

In optoelectronics, silver thin films play an important role. Silver thin film has a combination of low resistivity and excellent reflectivity which are preferred in optoelectronics devices such as Light Emitting Diodes (LED). This paper investigated the case of delamination of silver thin film sputtered on silicon dioxide surface after a photoresist lift-off process. Paper has proposed a failure mechanism for poor adhesion at the metal-dielectric interface. Based on the understanding of the failure mode, a suitable rapid thermal anneal process was developed for post-silver sputter annealing to significantly reduce the delamination. The interfaces and grain sizes were investigated using microscope and Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) techniques.