Kinetic model of co-deposition of thin multicomponent films

Abstract

We considered a co-deposition of a thin film of refractory matrix phase and mobile immiscible component. We established a relationship between the concentration of mobile component incorporated in the composite film and surface diffusion coefficient of this component. The developed model was employed for the analysis of the experimental data on deposition of Ag-doped TiCaPCON films by co-sputtering of composite TiС0.5–Ti3POx–CaО and elemental Ag targets. We demonstrated that increasing the temperature during deposition process and analyzing the post-deposition distributing of the components across the film depth allows estimating the Arrhenius diffusion parameters of the mobile component (Ag). The diffusion coefficient of Ag on the surface of composite film was estimated: (0.1m2/s)×exp(−155±10kJ/mol).