Study of optical properties of asymmetric bipolar pulse DC magnetron sputtered Ta2O5 thin film as a function of oxygen content in deposition ambient

Tantalum penta-oxide thin films have been deposited by reactive sputtering technique using asymmetric bipolar pulsed DC source at various oxygen percentage viz. 0 to 50 %. The optical properties of the films have been studied by spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements. It has been observed that compact films with low void fraction, high refractive index and band gap can be obtained by the above technique with oxygen percentage in the range of 30–40%. The films deposited with zero or very low oxygen content have high deposition rate and yield metal rich films with large voids, defects, low band gap and high refractive index. Similarly films deposited with >40% oxygen content again contain voids and defects due to the presence of large amount of gas molecules in the sputtering ambient