Effect of nitrogen concentration on titanium nitride thin film formation

Abstract

This paper presents the study of the influence of argon/nitrogen gas concentration ratio in the of reactive magnetron sputtering process  on the formation of titanium nitride (TiN) thin films. The addition of 5% nitrogen to the gas mixture is sufficient for the formation of titanium nitride films. It was found that changing the concentration of nitrogen in the reactive gas mixture affects the morphology of the surface, in particular, increasing the concentration of nitrogen leads to an increase in surface roughness of the resulting TiN films. According to the results of Raman spectroscopy, there is a dependence of  the ratio of peak areas (TO + LO)/(TA + LA) observed in the regions of 603, 175 and 315 cm^-1, respectively, on the N₂ concentration. The X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) analysis results show that increasing the nitrogen content in the reactive gas leads to a decrease in the oxygen concentration in the thin films. The results deepen the understanding of the synthesis of TiN thin films and their potential for the development and improvement of materials for various applications including microelectronics, optics, and coatings.