Development of preferred orientation in polycrystalline TiN layers grown by ultrahigh vacuum reactive magnetron sputtering

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The preferred orientation of polycrystalline TiN films grown by ultrahigh-vacuum reactive-magnetron sputter deposition on amorphous SiO2 at 350 °C in pure N2 discharges was controllably varied from (111) to completely (002) by varying the incident ion/metal flux ratio Ji/JTi from 1 to ≥5 with the N+2 ion energy Ei maintained constant at ≂20 eV (≂10 eV per incident accelerated N). All samples were slightly over-stoichiometric with N/Ti=1.02±0.03. Films deposited with Ji/JTi=1 initially exhibit a mixed texture with competitive columnar growth which slowly evolves into a nearly complete (111) texture at film thicknesses greater than 1 μm. However, films grown with Ji/JTi≥5 exhibit an essentially complete (002) preferred orientation from the earliest observable stages. The normalized XRD (002) intensity ratio in thick layers increased from ≂0 to 1 as Ji/JTi was varied from 1 to ≥5. Both (111) and (001) interplanar spacings remained constant as a function of film thickness yielding a lattice constant of 0.4240±0.0005 nm, equal to that of unstrained bulk TiN. Contrary to previous models, the present results establish that TiN preferred orientation can be controlled without introducing large in-plane compressive stress and/or changes in the strain energy as a function of layer thickness.