The atomic layer deposition of films under conditions outside the ALD window involves additional processes that have to be accounted for in order to achieve good quality films. [1] In the present study, the growth of ALD TiO2 films on silicon and polycarbonate in the temperature range 80 - 120°C has been investigated in detail for two combinations of pulsing times. Furthermore, both substrate materials were exposed to a low-pressure water plasma to investigate the effect of pre-treatment on the deposited films. A suite of characterisation techniques including XRD, SIMS, RBS, AFM, XTEM and spectroscopic ellipsometry was used to probe the physical and chemical properties of the films. In addition, microtensile testing of the films enable the interface energy and toughness to be determined. These measurements showed water plasma treatment prior to deposition increased the interface energy and interface toughness from 11 to 26 Jm-2 and 1.24 to 1.96 MPa.m1/2 respectively. The contact angle of the TiO2 films was measured to assess their wettability. These tests involved subjecting the films to single and cumulative exposures of UV radiation followed by measurement of the contact angle. For an 85 nm film on polycarbonate, the contact angle decreased from 60° for the as-deposited surface to 10° following a 15 minute exposure. A 25 nm film yielded a similar decrease though this was only achieved after a 50 minute exposure. 1.M. Ritala and M. Leskelä, in Handbook of Thin Film Materials, Volume 1: Deposition and Processing of Thin Films, H.S. Halwa (ed.), Chap. 2, Academic, NY, 2002.

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1. Characterisation of nickel silicide thin films by spectroscopy and microscopy techniques