Authors: Nishat Arshi Junqing Lu Yun Kon Joo Chan Gyu Lee Jae Hong Yoon Faheem Ahmed
Publish Date: 2012/09/15
Volume: 24, Issue: 4, Pages: 1194-1202
Abstract
In this work nanocrystalline titanium nitride TiN films have been deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering technique on the Si/SiO2 100 substrates The influence of nitrogen gas flow rate 0 3 5 7 and 9 sccm standard cubic centimeter per minute on the structural morphological and electrical properties of the nanocrystalline TiN films has been studied Asdeposited TiN films have been characterized by using Xray diffraction XRD XPS Xray photoelectron spectroscopy FESEM field emission scanning electron microscopy and four point probe resistivity measurement respectively The XRD patterns revealed the HCP symmetry for pure Ti N2 = 0 sccm with 002 preferred orientations and the FCC symmetry for TiN N2 = 3 5 7 and 9 sccm films having 111 preferred orientations The lattice parameters were found to be a = 2950 Ǻ c = 4681Ǻ for the Ti N2 = 0 sccm film and a = 4250Å for the TiN films The presence of different phases such as TiN and TiO2 were confirmed by XPS analysis The FESEM images showed a smooth morphology of the film with columnar grain structures The grain size of the TiN films was found to decrease from 22 to 15 nm as the nitrogen flow rate is increased from 0 to 9 sccm The electrical resistivity measurement showed that the resistivity of the film increased from 11 × 10−6 to 17 × 10−6 Ohm cm on increasing nitrogen flow rate from 3 to 9 sccm having the lowest resistivity of 11 × 10−6 Ohm cm for the film deposited at 3 sccm nitrogen flowThis research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea NRF funded by the Ministry of Education Science and Technology 20100021715 This work was also supported by research funds of Changwon National University in 2012
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