Elemental depth profiling and stability of oxidized zinc nitride films by TOF-ERDA

In this work we study the depth profiles of oxidized metastable Zn 3 N 2 thin films using time-of-flight elastic recoil detection analysis (TOF-ERDA). The goal of the experiment is to test the reproducibility of the concentration and thickness quantification with two different ion beams: 18 MeV and 20 MeV . Our results show very good agreement between the depth profiles obtained with both beams, which confirm the top-down transformation of the layers. The elemental loss was evaluated in the samples, showing that N and H are sensitive to beam damage, while O and Zn remain stable. This loss needs to be considered to obtain more accurate quantification of the atomic content in the layers.