Copper Nitride Films Prepared by Reactive Radio-Frequency Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

The semiconducting Cu3N films were successfully deposited on glass substrates by reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering in a mixture gas of nitrogen and argon. The influence of nitrogen content in a fixed total sputtering gas flow on the preferential crystalline orientation, the mean crystalline grains size, the electrical resistivity, the microhardness, and the reduced modulus were investigated. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the films were polycrystalline Cu3N and the preferential orientation is greatly affected by the N2 content. The mean crystalline grain size of these as-deposited Cu3N films decrease and the electrical resistivity increase from 1.51×102Ω•cm to 1.129×103Ω•cm with increasing N2 content. And the microhardness and reduced modulus are 6.0GPa and 108.3GPa, respectively. The sectional SEM and planform AFM observations reveal that the films have smooth surfaces with columnar grains.