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Influence of nitrogen concentration on electrical, mechanical, and structural properties of tantalum nitride thin films prepared via DC magnetron sputtering

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Abstract

Tantalum nitride thin films are grown on silicon wafers using a mixture of Ar/N2 using DC magnetron sputtering. The influence of nitrogen concentration on various features of tantalum nitride thin films is systematically studied. X-ray diffraction results show characteristic peaks of FCC tantalum nitride with crystallite size gradually increasing upon an augmentation in the nitrogen concentration. Field emission scanning electron microscopy images indicate that the tantalum nitride thin films are made of crystal domains with almost regular boundaries. As nitrogen concentration increases from 10 to 25%, the average domain size increases. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) results show larger surface roughness for the tantalum nitride thin films with higher nitrogen concentration owing to grain boundary diffusivity. Furthermore, quantitative characterization of 3-D surface morphology from AFM micrographs is obtained by multifractal and stereometric analyses. The results of mechanical properties show a decrease in the hardness upon increasing the nitrogen concentration due to variation in the grain size. The obtained results from the four-point probe illustrate that the specimen with higher nitrogen content displays the minimum sheet resistance due to a decrease in inter-grain boundaries emanated from the larger grain size. The current study renders a new insight in controlling the conductivity and the hardness of TaN thin film based on the deposition conditions and provide a correlation between the structural and other properties of TaN films, which is useful for a variety of semiconductor devices.

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Acknowledgements

A. Jafari thanks the Foundation for Polish Science financed by the European Union under the European Regional Development Fund (POIR.04.04.00-00-3ED8/17). This work was funded by the University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, under grant No. (UJ-21-DR-31). The authors, therefore, acknowledge with thanks the University of Jeddah technical and financial support.

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Author notes

  1. Davoud Dastan and Ke Shan contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

    Davoud Dastan

  2. School of Chemistry and Resources Engineering, Honghe University, Mengzi, 661199, Yunnan, China

    Ke Shan

  3. Department of Molecular Physics, Faculty of Chemistry, Lodz University of Technology, Zeromskiego 116, 90-924, Lodz, Poland

    Azadeh Jafari

  4. Micro-Nano Systems Centre, Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Farzan Gity & Lida Ansari

  5. School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai, 264000, Shandong, China

    Xi-Tao Yin

  6. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266100, People’s Republic of China

    Zhicheng Shi

  7. Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

    Najlaa D. Alharbi

  8. National Center for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, 400098, India

    Bilal Ahmad Reshi

  9. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Wenbin Fu & Hamid Garmestani

  10. The Directorate of Research, Development and Innovation Management (DMCDI), Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 15 Constantin Daicoviciu St., Cluj-Napoca, 400020, Cluj county, Romania

    Ştefan Ţălu

  11. Key Laboratory of Organic Industries, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Damascus University, Damascus, Syria

    Loai Aljerf

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  1. Davoud Dastan
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Correspondence to Davoud Dastan, Xi-Tao Yin or Zhicheng Shi.

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Dastan, D., Shan, K., Jafari, A. et al. Influence of nitrogen concentration on electrical, mechanical, and structural properties of tantalum nitride thin films prepared via DC magnetron sputtering. Appl. Phys. A 128, 400 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-022-05501-4

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