Local electric-field-induced oxidation of titanium nitride films

Nanometer-scale patterning of TiN films grown on SiO2 /Si( 001) has been demonstrated using the local electric-field-induced oxidation process with a conductive-probe atomic force microscope. The chemical composition of the modified TiN region was determined by micro-Auger electron spectroscopy and was found to consist of Ti, some trace amount of N, and O, suggesting the formation of titanium oxynitride in the near surface region. The dependence of the oxide height on the sample bias voltage with a fixed scanning speed shows a nonlinear trend in the high electric field regime, indicating that the growth kinetics might be significantly different from previous studies using other film materials. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)03208-8].