Abstract
Nanocrystalline TiZrN thin films were deposited on Si (001) substrates by unbalanced magnetron sputtering. The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of nitrogen flow rate on the structure and properties of the TiZrN films with nitrogen flow ranging from 0 to 2.5 sccm. The major effects of the nitrogen flow rate were on the phase, texture, N/(Ti+Zr) ratio, thickness, hardness, residual stress, and resistivity of the TiZrN films. The nitrogen content plays an important role in the transition of phase. With the increase in nitrogen flow, the phase changed from TiZr and TiZrN mixing phases to single TiZrN phase. The results of XRD pattern indicated that (111) was the preferred orientation for all TiZrN specimens. The N/(Ti+Zr) ratio of the TiZrN films increased with respect to the nitrogen flow rate, and tended to stabilization as nitrogen flow rate further increased. When nitrogen flow rate increased from 0.4 to 1.0 sccm, the hardness and residual stress of TiZrN thin film increased, whereas the electrical resistivity decreased. All properties of the TiZrN thin films were not varied with nitrogen flow rate was over 1.0 sccm due to the fact that the films contained a stable single phase TiZrN. At high nitrogen flow rate of 1.0 to 2.5 sccm, the average hardness and resistivity of TiZrN thin films was about 36 GPa and 36.5 µΩ-cm, respectively.