Epitaxial growth aluminum film

Aluminum has attracted a great deal of attention as an alternative plasmonic material to silver and gold because of its natural abundance on Earth, material stability, unique spectral capability in the ultraviolet spectral region, and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatibility. Surprisingly, in some recent studies, aluminum has been reported to outperform silver in the visible range due to its superior surface and interface properties. Here, we demonstrate excellent structural and optical properties measured for aluminum epitaxial films grown on sapphire substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy under ultrahigh vacuum growth conditions. Using the epitaxial growth technique, distinct advantages can be achieved for plasmonic applications, including high-fidelity nanofabrication and wafer-scale system integration.