Surface Stoichiometry and Depth Profile of Tix-CuyNz Thin Films Deposited by Magnetron Sputtering

Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay; Avishek Roy; Gourab Bhattacharjee; Sadhan Chandra Das; Abhijit Majumdar; Harm Wulff; Rainer Hippler

doi:10.3390/ma14123191

Surface Stoichiometry and Depth Profile of Ti_x-Cu_yN_z Thin Films Deposited by Magnetron Sputtering

Materials (Basel). 2021 Jun 9;14(12):3191. doi: 10.3390/ma14123191.

Authors

Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay^{1

2}, Avishek Roy^{1

3}, Gourab Bhattacharjee⁴, Sadhan Chandra Das⁵, Abhijit Majumdar^{1

6}, Harm Wulff⁶, Rainer Hippler^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, Howrah 711103, India.
² Department of Physics, Dinabandhu Andrews College, 54 Raja S.C. Mallick Road, Kolkata 700008, India.
³ Department of Electronics, Vidyasagar College, 39 Sankar Ghosh Lane, Kolkata 700006, India.
⁴ Surface Physics and Material Science Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, HBNI, 1/AF Bidhannagar, Kolkata 700064, India.
⁵ UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Indore 452017, India.
⁶ Institute of Physics, University of Greifswald, Felix-Hausdorff-Str. 6, 17489 Greifswald, Germany.
⁷ Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague, Czech Republic.

Abstract

We report the surface stoichiometry of Tix-CuyNz thin film as a function of film depth. Films are deposited by high power impulse (HiPIMS) and DC magnetron sputtering (DCMS). The composition of Ti, Cu, and N in the deposited film is investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). At a larger depth, the relative composition of Cu and Ti in the film is increased compared to the surface. The amount of adventitious carbon which is present on the film surface strongly decreases with film depth. Deposited films also contain a significant amount of oxygen whose origin is not fully clear. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD) shows a Cu3N phase on the surface, while transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicates a polycrystalline structure and the presence of a Ti3CuN phase.

Keywords: N incorporation; Ti-Cu-N coating; Transmission electron microscopy; X-ray diffraction; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; magnetron sputtering.