Influence of nitrogen content on the thermal diffusivity of TiN films prepared by magnetron sputtering. (1st February 2020) - Lu, Guiyun
ABSTRACT: TiN films with various nitrogen content were deposited using reactive magnetron sputtering system and the influence of TiN film's microstructure on thermal diffusivity was investigated. The results showed that the titanium nitride film with 40.6–64.0at.% N exhibited a single face-centered cubic (fcc) structure. The density of states calculations of TiNx showed that excess N atoms in TiN matrix weaken the Ti-N bonds. The thermal diffusivity of TiN thin films decreased gradually and reached a stable range with an increase of N content. The minimum thermal diffusivity value was 2.291×10 −6 m 2 /s at 60.2at.% N. This reduction of thermal diffusivity could be attribute to the films' microstructure, including the increased grain boundaries due to the decrease of grain size, the change of preferential orientation and the increased lattice distortion.