Characterisation of fully filtered cathodic arc deposited TiN films irradiated by KrF excimer laser

Titanium Nitride (TiN) is a unique material that is useful for wide ranging applications from tribological coatings to microelectronics. The potential to utilise many of its interesting properties for microengineering relies on the ability to pattern these films. This paper presents a materials characterisation of KrF excimer laser machined TiN films deposited under fully filtered conditions onto Cr coated Si (100) substrate. Machining was carried out at fluences in the range of 0.58 to 2.16 J/cm2 using one and two shots. Characterisation of the machined TiN films was carried out using Energy Dipersive Spectrometry (EDS), Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). The studies showed that both EDS and RBS could be used to determine the presence of selective removal of a TiN film, in this case a 75 nm fully filtered TiN film. For TiN films that did not show selective etching, RBS and SIMS provided complementry analyses of the residual TiN by enabling element depth profiling