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The microstructures of TiN/SiNx films are studied by means of a Monte Carlo method. The simulation results show that nanocomposite films with microstructures comprising nanocrystalline TiN grains in an amorphous SiNx matrix are driven by the energy difference between the TiN grain-boundary energy and TiN/SiNx interfacial energy. The SiNx matrix formed can constrain TiN grain growth and thus causes a remarkable reduction in TiN grain size. The effect of the SiNx fraction on the sizes of TiN grains is also investigated. It is found that the average size of TiN grains decreases with volume fraction of SiNx approximately according to a power law with a time-dependent exponent decreasing with growth time. These simulation results are in reasonable agreement with experimental observations.
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Liu et al. (2003) studied this question.
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