In these techniques, the major concerns for minimizing the porous metastable microstructure have still not been resolved, which is critically related to the degradation of TaN x film’s mechanical and electrical properties (Ohring 1992). 2002), and ion beam deposition (IBED) (Baba and Hatada 1996 Ensinger et al. 2002), chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (Cho et al. Various techniques have been adopted to obtain high-quality TaN x thin films, such as reactive sputtering (RSP) (Lee et al.
Due to the complexity of the Ta-N system, its microstructural change is very sensitive to the deposition method and growth conditions. ε-TaN, and meta-stable phases with defects (Kawasaki et al. Unlike the most common metal nitride, TaN x has a complex system with many equilibrium phases, i.e., amorphous, body-centered-cubic (b.c.c.) α-Ta(N 0.1), hexagonal-close-packing (h.c.p.) γ-Ta 2N, face-centered-cubic (f.c.c.) δ-TaN, h.c.p. Tantalum nitride (TaN x) has been widely used for wear resistance coatings, diffusion barrier layers, and high-density magnetic recording media because of its good mechanical properties, chemical inertness, wide band-gap, and high-temperature stability (Choi and Yoon 2004 Han et al. The dense δ-TaN structure with reduced columnar grains and micro-voids increases the strength of the TaN x film. The higher ICP power enhances the mobility of Ta and N ions, which stabilizes the δ-TaN phase like a high-temperature regime and removes the micro-voids between the columnar grains in the TaN x film. δ- TaN phase becomes the main phase in all nitrogen fractions investigated. By increasing ICP power from 100 W to 400 W, the f.c.c. As nitrogen gas fraction increases from 0.05 to 0.15, the TaN x phase evolves from body-centered-cubic (b.c.c.) TaN 0.1, to face-centered-cubic (f.c.c.) δ-TaN, to hexagonal-close-packing (h.c.p.) ε-TaN phase. The detailed microstructural changes of the TaN x films were characterized utilizing transmission electron microscopy (TEM), as a function of nitrogen gas fraction and ICP power.
Tantalum nitride (TaN x) thin films were grown utilizing an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted direct current (DC) sputtering, and 20–100% improved microhardness values were obtained.
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