Correlations of plasma parameters and properties of magnetron sputtered TiN films

Titanium nitride thin films have been grown on Si substrates by using DC reactive magnetron sputtering from a titanium target at different DC power (100–400 W). The different plasma parameters such as plasma potential, floating potential, electron temperature, electron density and ion density have been measured using a Langmuir probe. The electron energy distribution function (EEDF) has been evaluated from the second derivative of I-V plot of the Langmuir probe data and has shown to be bi-Maxwellian. The correlations between measured plasma parameters and the properties of TiN films deposited at the same operating conditions have been studied. It has been observed that the hardness decreases and the resistivity increases in films deposited at higher DC power. This is attributed to the growth of Ti2N phase at higher powers. The mechanical properties of the films have also been studied