Growth and characterization of RuO/sub 2/ films prepared by reactive unbalanced magnetron sputtering

Abstract

We prepared RuO/sub 2/ thin films on Si substrates by reactive unbalanced magnetron sputtering in Ar+O/sub 2/ mixtures using a planar round ruthenium target of 50 mm diameter. Films were sputtered in the constant voltage mode at a power of 100 W, total pressures in the range from 0.2 to 10 Pa and partial pressure of O/sub 2/ from 0 to 80% at temperatures up to 600/spl deg/C and negative bias voltage. We investigated the crystallographic nature of films by X-ray diffraction. EDX measurements confirmed the presence of Ru and O in films, RBS measurements revealed changes of composition with bias voltage. It was found that there were changes of structure, electrical and mechanical properties with the oxygen flow ratio, temperature and substrate bias voltage. Nanoindentation measurements were utilised for evaluation of the hardness and reduced modulus of films.