Self-Formation of Dual Glassy-Crystalline Structure in Magnetron Sputtered W–Zr Films

Deposition Rate Controls Nucleation and Growth During Amorphous/Nanocrystalline Competition in Sputtered Zr-Cr Thin Films

“…Thus, sputtering films at the transition between the amorphous and crystalline compositions could lead to new microstructures, such as the dual-phase crystalline and amorphous thin films that have been reported in the literature. This dual-phase morphology has already been observed in Zr-W [16][17][18] and Zr-Mo [19]. Moreover, similar morphologies have been reported in the literature for different systems (Ti-Al [20], Ti-O [21], Al-N [22]), where it has only been mentioned without much attention given to its development.…”

“…At the composition of the transition, however, two different regions can be observed, an amorphous and a crystalline, separated by an interface. According to previous works [16][17][18][19], the crystalline region is in the form of disks on the surface, surrounded by an amorphous matrix. From this micrograph, it is also noticeable that, at some point, the crystalline regions coalesce.…”

“…This work aims to study what happens at the transition range, and aims to search for a competitive growth between an amorphous and crystalline phases, as has been seen for other Zr-based binary systems in magnetron sputtering [16][17][18][19]. For this purpose, different thin films at compositions around the transition between these two phases were deposited at a 11 nm/min deposition rate.…”