X-ray diffraction measurement of residual stress and crystal orientation in Au/NiCr/Ta films prepared by plating

Au/NiCr/Ta films were prepared by plating and then annealed at 400 °C in Ar gas for an hour. The Au diffraction peak positions including incidence angles 0°, 15°, 30°, and 45° were measured by a glancing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) method. Residual stresses were then calculated using the sin²ψ method. The results indicate that the residual stress in the as-deposited Au/NiCr/Ta films was about 50 MPa, but was decreased down to − 5 MPa in average after samples annealing. The XRD analysis on crystal orientation shows that only the diffraction peaks of Au were found. There are no alloying phases in the plating Au film, and the interlayer of NiCr and Ta is too thin to be detected by the conventional XRD. The XRD also revealed that the films are highly textured with Au-(111) or a mixture of Au-(111) and Au-(200) orientation, and the (111)/(200) intensity ratio decreases after samples annealed.