Structural Properties of Ammoniated Thin Cr Films with Oxygen Incorporated During Deposition

Abstract

Metallic Cr film coatings of 1.2 µm thickness were prepared by DC magnetron sputter deposition method on cplane sapphire substrates. The thin Cr films were ammoniated during horizontal furnace thermal annealing for 10-240 min in NH 3 gas flow conditions between 400 and 900 o C. After annealing, changes in the crystal phase and chemical constituents of the films were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis. Nitridation of the metallic Cr films begins at 500 o C and with further increases in annealing temperature not only chromium nitrides (Cr 2 N and CrN) but also chromium oxide (Cr 2 O 3 ) was detected. The oxygen in the films originated from contamination during the film formation. With further increase of temperature above 800 o C, the nitrogen species were sufficiently supplied to the film's surface and transformed to the single-phase of CrN. However, the CrN phase was only available in a very small process window owing to the oxygen contamination during the sputter deposition. From the XPS analysis, the atomic concentration of oxygen in the as-deposited film was about 40 at% and decreased to the value of 15 at% with increase in annealing temperature up to 900 o C, while the nitrogen concentration was increased to 42 at%.