Effects of Vanadium Content on Structure and Chemical State of TiVN Films Prepared by Reactive DC Magnetron Co-Sputtering

Abstract

TiVN films were deposited on Si(100) wafers without external heating and biasing by reactive dc magnetron co-sputtering. Titanium and vanadium metals were used as sputtering targets. Ar and N2 gases were used as sputtering gas and reactive gas, respectively. The flow rates of Ar and N2 were 8 and 4 sccm, respectively. The Ti sputtering current (ITi) was kept constant at 0.6 Aand V sputtering current (IV) was varied from 0.4 to1.0 A. The deposition time for all the deposited films was 30 min. The effects of V sputtering current on the structure, surface and cross-sectional morphologies, and chemical composition and chemical state of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. It was found that all the prepared film formed (Ti,V)N solid solution. The lattice parameter was found to decrease while crystallite size, RMS roughness and film thickness increased with increasing V sputtering current. High resolution XPS spectra of the Ti 2p, V 2p and N 1s revealed that the fraction of Ti-N and V-N bonds increased as the V sputtering current increased. However, the V-N bond was observed only at a high V sputtering current.