Study of the effect of plasma current density on the formation of titanium nitride and titanium oxynitride thin films prepared by reactive DC magnetron sputtering

Titanium nitride and titanium oxynitride films were deposited by varying the plasma current density from 10 mA/cm2 to 40 mA/cm2 using DC magnetron sputtering at constant gas flow rate and deposition time. Samples were characterized by Grazing Incidence X-Ray Diffraction, XPS, Nanoindentation and colorimetric analysis. Different coloured films like golden, blue, pink and green were obtained at different current densities. At lower current density (10 mA/cm2), golden coloured stoichiometric titanium nitride film was formed. At higher current densities (20, 30 and 40 mA/cm2), non stoichiometric Titanium oxynitride films of colour blue, pink and green were formed respectively. The thickness of the films increased with plasma current density from 43 nm to 117 nm. It was found that the colour variation was not only due to thickness of the film but also due to oxygen atoms replacing the nitrogen positions in TiN lattice. Hardness and Young Modulus of the films were found to decrease from 17.49 GPa to 7.05 GPa and 319.58 GPa–246.77 GPa respectively with increasing plasma current density. This variation of hardness and Young Modulus of the films can be speculated due to change in crystal orientation caused by oxygen incorporation in the films. The film resistivity increased from 16.46 × 10−4 to 3.28 × 10−1 Ω cm for increasing plasma current density caused due to oxygen incorporation in the crystal lattice.