Abstract
This study developed a two-step method to control the growth of TiN and ZrO2 thin films using thin film templates and explored the effects of template on the structure and properties of the derivative thin films. The experiment was divided into two parts. The first part was to deposit TiN on TiN(111), TiN(200) and Ti(0002) templates. In the second part, ZrO2 thin films were grown by oxidizing ZrN thin films with different preferred orientations in Ar (99.99% purity) atmosphere, where ZrN (111) thin films were prepared by three deposition systems for examining the effect of different deposition methods. The texture of the top TiN thin films revealed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) changed from (111) to (200) as TiN(200) template was used. In the cases of using Ti(0002) or TiN(111) templates, the texture of the derivative TiN thin films switched from (200) to (111). The results indicated that templates were more effective on controlling texture of TiN thin film than adjusting deposition parameters. For the oxidation of ZrN thin film, monoclinic (m-ZrO2) and tetragonal (t-ZrO2) phases of ZrO2 were coexisted in all heat-treated specimens, and t-ZrO2 is the dominant phase in the ZrN specimen with higher N/Zr ratio while m-ZrO2 is prevailed in the ZrN specimens with lower N/Zr ratios. There was no substantial difference in the phase ratio and preferred orientation of m-ZrO2 grown from oxidation of ZrN specimens with different textures. Blisters were observed on the surface of the heat-treated ZrN specimens. A semi-quantitative analysis was proposed to examine the driving force of the blister formation, indicating that blisters may result from the compressive stress induced by the volume expansion from ZrN to m-ZrO2.