Correlation of Structural, Morphological, Electrical and Mechanical Properties of TiN Thin Film at Different Substrate Bias

In this work, we report the detailed investigation of the dependence of structural, morphological, electrical and mechanical properties on substrate bias of TiN films deposited on Si/SiO2 (100) using DC sputtering technique. The striking similarities between changes in the preferred orientation, grain size, N/Ti ratio, deposition rate, thickness, resistivity and hardness indicated a strong correlation among these properties. As the substrate bias was increased from 0 to 500 the grain size, deposition rate was found to decrease. However resistivity, hardness and N/Ti ratio was found to increase. The crystallographic orientation of the film changes from a mixture of (111) and (200) to (111) only with increasing nitrogen flow. Morphological studies were performed using field emission scanning electron microscopy. The cross-sectional structure of the film changed from cross-sectional to granular structure. The films with a high (111) diffraction peak intensity has a high resistivity and hardness and that with a high (200) peak has low resistivity and hardness.