Open Access MSA 689 Effects of Titanium Sputtering Current on Structure and Morphology of TiZrN Films Prepared by Reactive DC

Copyright © 2013 Somchai Chinsakolthanakorn et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attri-bution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. TiZrN films were deposited on unheated Si (100) substrates by reactive dc magnetron co-sputtering. Titanium and zir-conium metals were used as sputtering targets. Ar and N2 gas were used as sputtering gas and reactive gas, with the flow rates of 8 and 4 sccm, respectively. The Zr sputtering current was fixed at 0.6 A and Ti sputtering current varied from 0.6 to 1.2 A. The deposition time for all the deposited films was 60 min. The effects of Ti sputtering current on the structure and morphology of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was found that all the prepared films were (Ti,Zr)N solid solution. Furthermore, the lattice parameter was found to decrease whereas the crystallite size, RMS roughness and film thickness increased with increasing Ti sputtering current. As a result, the crystallinity of the films increased, which is in agreement with XRD results