Positron Annihilation in TaN Thin Sputtering Films Prepared with Various N₂ Partial Pressures

Abstract

Tantalum nitride (TaN) thin films were deposited using magnetron sputtering method under different N2/Ar ratio condition. Slow positron beam was used to analyze the microstructure of those films. The results show that the films which deposited at low N2/Ar flow ratio contain more vacancy-like defects, and the corresponding S parameter is relatively large. The sheet resistance measurement displays that ohms-per-square greatly increase with increased N2/Ar ratio. And the reasons could be related to nonstoichiometry-induced vacancies and lattice distortions.