Abstract:
The structural and oxidation resistance of TiN thin films, grown by reactive DC magnetron
sputtering technique was studied. To evaluate crystal structure and oxidation behavior of
coated samples, annealing with the different temperature in the range of 500 - 1000 °C were
conducted. After annealing, the films were characterized using X-ray Diffractometer (XRD),
Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM). The XRD resulted revealed that the formation oxidation which TiO2 rutile phase diffraction peak appear from 600 °C and the intensity of oxide increased gradually with temperature. The aggregation of grain increased with temperature were observed from FESEM.
The cross-sectional results showed that the thin dense oxide over layer was present at
500 oC and the oxide thickness increased gradually with temperature. Meanwhile,
underneath TiN grain grew above 500 oC and become more void structure after annealing at
700 °C. The oxygen content was found at 500 oC and the evolution of Ti, N and O with
different elements compositions at various annealing temperatures were investigated from
EDS technique. The oxidation rate was found to depend strongly on annealing temperature.
The oxidation activation energy of 44.54 kJ/mol was obtained.