The Effect of Base Pressure on Crystal Structure and Microstructure of CrN Thin Film Deposited by Reactive Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

The CrN thin films were deposited using reactive magnetron sputtering by varying base pressure to investigate the crystal structure, microstructure and composition of thin film. In this work, the films properties were characterized by XRD, FE-SEM and EDX techniques. The crystal structures were obtained the cubic of CrN with the crystal size between 23.23 – 28.25 nm and lattice parameters a = b = c = 4.142 - 4.160 Å. The XRD results indicated that the growth of preferred orientation was changed from (200) to (111) plane with increased the base pressure. The surface morphology of CrN thin films did not affected from base pressure. The thickness of CrN thin films which obtained from cross section analysis was decreased from 1788 to 1745 nm by varying the base pressure. The columnar pattern acccompany with the dense structure were investigated from the cross-section analysis. The Cr composition was substantly decreased whereas theN2 composition were increased which observed from EDX technique.