Effect of Compressed Plasma Flow on Tantalum-Titanium Thin Layer Deposited on Silicon Substrate

Abstract

The interaction of a dense compressed nitrogen plasma flow with a system of Ta-Ti layers on a silicon substrate has been investigated. This plasma flow was generated in a quasi-stationary pulsed plasma accelerator that can provide a supersonic high energy plasma flux. The plasma pulse duration, discharge current, concentration, and energy densities absorbed by the target were 100 µs, 80 kA, 1018 cm−3, and 3–13 J/cm2 respectively. The samples were exposed to a single plasma pulseor to a series of pulses and were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and energy dispersive X-ray analyses. The result showed that the changes in the elemental and structure phase compositions depends on energy and number of plasma pulses. Formation of Ti5Si3 and Ta2N, are the main results of the current research.