Optical properties of TixAl1 − xN thin films in the whole compositional range

We present a study on a wide variety of TixAl1 − xN magnetron sputtered thin films, covering the whole compositional range (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) and exhibiting both the hexagonal and cubic phases, using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and the optical modeling based on Drude's model and two Lorentz oscillators in order to study the intraband and interband absorption. The cubic B1‐TixAl1 − xN phase is formed for x > 0.3 and it is electrically conductive with conduction electron density and resistivity/conductivity varying with the Al content, while the hexagonal phase w‐TixAl1 − xN (x < 0.3) is transparent in the visible range and its fundamental gap varies with the Ti content. The optical and electronic properties are associated with the chemical composition and microstructure of TixAl1 − xN and its vast range from high band gap semiconductor to electron conductor offers exceptional potential for a variety of applications of TixAl1 − xN in electronics.