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Abstract
In the present work, we have investigated the structural and electrical properties of CrN thin films for a thickness t in the 30-220 nm range, grown on Si (100) substrates. The CrN/Si (100) films exhibits a structural transition from hexagonal phase (β-Cr2N) to cubic phase (CrN) with the increasing in film thickness, the change in structural transition is attributed to the decrease of film-substrate interfacial strain. From electrical resistivity measurements, the thickness of 150 nm CrN/Si (100) film shown the metal-semiconductor phase transition at around 250 K with energy band gap (Eg) 81 meV in semiconducting region, whereas the thickness of 30, 110 and 220 nm CrN/Si(100) films were shown only semiconducting behaviour for whole temperature range of 50-400 K. On the other hand, a clear grain size was increased in CrN/Si films with increasing thickness and its influence on transport properties was also seen. The possibility of phase transition and occurrence of semiconducting behaviour in the CrN films were analysed.
Highlights
Over the past decades, CrN has received a great technological attention due to its remarkable mechanical properties such as high hardness, high wear resistance, and high temperature oxidation resistance[1,2,3]
Ney et al.[12] reported that the CrN thin films deposited on MgO (001) substrate and Al2O3 (0001) substrate showed the paramagnetic behaviour at low temperature and ferromagnetic behaviour above room temperature, respectively
In order to investigate the micro structural properties, we studied the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis for all deposited CrN/Si (100) films
Summary
CrN has received a great technological attention due to its remarkable mechanical properties such as high hardness, high wear resistance, and high temperature oxidation resistance[1,2,3]. Many authors studied the structural, electrical, mechanical and magnetic properties of CrN thin films grown on different substrates, such as Si (100), MgO (001) and Al2O3 (0001) etc.[6,7,8,9,10,11]. Constantin et al.[14] observed that electronic, magnetic and structural phase transitions might be correlated in CrN/MgO film deposited by molecular-beam epitaxy method. Some experimental studies revealed different results on the electron transport properties of CrN material. It is still open issue in this material how the structural and electronic phase transitions are correlated[15].
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