Negative effect of vacancies on cubic symmetry, hardness and conductivity in hafnium nitride films

Abstract

Although vacancies exist commonly in nonstoichiometric transition metal nitrides, their roles on structure and properties are not yet well explored. We show that in rocksalt hafnium nitride films creation of nitrogen and hafnium vacancies leads to an asymmetrical lattice contraction and distortion from cubic to rhombohedral structure owing to the presence of strong texture and compressive stress, and also causes decrease in hardness because of reduction in bulk modulus and decrease in electrical conductivity due to reduction in electron relaxation time. This new insight into vacancy-induced “negative effect” is demonstrated through good matches between our experiments and theoretical calculations.