Morphological study of magnetron sputtered Ti thin films on silicon substrate

Titanium films on Si(1 0 0) substrate were deposited by DC-magnetron sputtering. The effect of substrate temperature on the microstructural morphologies of the films was characterized by using field emission-based scanning electron microscopy/electron back scattered difffraction (FE-SEM/EBSD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the phases and crystallite size of the Ti films and it was observed that according to the first figure of this article: (0 0 2) orientation increases from 200 °C and it changes into (1 0 1) orientation from 300 °C. The SEM analysis of the Ti films, deposited in Ar atmosphere, showed two- and three-dimensional hexagonal structure of the grains at the substrate temperature of 200 °C and >200 °C, respectively. The increase in grain size of Ti films with the substrate temperature was confirmed by EBSD and AFM characterization. The average surface roughness of the Ti films has increased with increase in substrate temperature as evident from the AFM study.