Oxidation of Tantalum Nano-Film by Microwave Exposure
Abstract
Oxidation and ablation of 200 nm tantalum films were carried out by three routes: (i) femtosecond (fs-)laser direct write, (ii) high-temperature annealing (HTA) in a tube furnace, and (iii) annealing in a 2.45 GHz microwave cavity. Complete conversion of the 200 nm Ta layer into 409 nm of Ta2O5 required one hour at 600 C in the furnace, but only minutes at ~ 50 W of microwave power. Fs-laser (515 nm/200 fs) oxidation of the Ta nano-film set in at an average single-pulse fluence of ~ 0.1 J/cm2 under strong pulse-to-pulse overlap (900 pulses per focal spot), i.e. within a narrow window bounded from above by the onset of ablation. Under microwave annealing, both the cavity resonance frequency and the quality factor Q changed markedly at the metal-to-oxide transition, reflecting the collapse of the real and imaginary parts of the permittivity at 2.45 GHz. This dielectric contrast turns the cavity into a sensor: the oxidation can be followed in real time from the shift of the cavity resonance, providing a non-invasive, in-situ diagnostic tool.
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BibTeX
@misc{zamengo2026oxidation,
title = {{Oxidation of Tantalum Nano-Film by Microwave Exposure}},
author = {Massimiliano Zamengo and Lina Grineviciute and Hsin-Hui Huang and Haoran Mu and Julianija Nikitina and Saulius Juodkazis and Junko Morikawa},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.06019},
eprint = {2609.06019},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06019},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Oxidation of Tantalum Nano-Film by Microwave Exposure
AU - Massimiliano Zamengo
AU - Lina Grineviciute
AU - Hsin-Hui Huang
AU - Haoran Mu
AU - Julianija Nikitina
AU - Saulius Juodkazis
AU - Junko Morikawa
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/05
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.06019
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06019
AB - Oxidation and ablation of 200 nm tantalum films were carried out by three routes: (i) femtosecond (fs-)laser direct write, (ii) high-temperature annealing (HTA) in a tube furnace, and (iii) annealing in a 2.45 GHz microwave cavity. Complete conversion of the 200 nm Ta layer into 409 nm of Ta2O5 required one hour at 600 C in the furnace, but only minutes at ~ 50 W of microwave power. Fs-laser (515 nm/200 fs) oxidation of the Ta nano-film set in at an average single-pulse fluence of ~ 0.1 J/cm2 under strong pulse-to-pulse overlap (900 pulses per focal spot), i.e. within a narrow window bounded from above by the onset of ablation. Under microwave annealing, both the cavity resonance frequency and the quality factor Q changed markedly at the metal-to-oxide transition, reflecting the collapse of the real and imaginary parts of the permittivity at 2.45 GHz. This dielectric contrast turns the cavity into a sensor: the oxidation can be followed in real time from the shift of the cavity resonance, providing a non-invasive, in-situ diagnostic tool.
ER -