Deposition of titanium nitride on Si(1 0 0) wafers using plasma focus

Titanium nitride thin films were deposited on Si(1 0 0) substrates by using a low energy (2.3 KJ) Mather-type plasma focus device. The composition of the deposited films was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The crystallite size has strong dependence on the numbers of focus shots. The crystallinity of TiN thin films is found to increase with increasing the number of focus shots. The effect of different number of focus shots on micro structural changes of thin films was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). SEM results showed net-like structure for film deposited for 15 numbers of shots, which are elongated grains of Si₃N₄ in amorphous form embedded into TiN crystals. The average surface roughness was calculated from AFM images of the thin films. These results indicated that the average surface roughness increased for films deposited with increased number of focus shots. The least crystallite size and roughness are observed for film deposited with 25 focus shots.