Tailoring of structure formation and phase composition in reactively sputtered zirconium oxide films using nitrogen as an additional reactive gas

The structure of ZrO2 films has been controlled during reactive sputtering in an argon∕oxygen atmosphere by adding an amount of nitrogen gas to the process. Depending on the deposition conditions, amorphous, cubic, or monoclinic films have been obtained without any additional substrate heating. The resulting film structure is explained in terms of the control of fast negative oxygen ions generated at the target surface and accelerated toward the growing film. Furthermore, the nitrogen addition leads to a pronounced stabilization of the plasma discharge and fewer arcing events, while the incorporation of nitrogen atoms in the growing film is very small.