Electronic and electrical contact applications of TiN require a detailed understanding of the surface chemistry behavior in a variety of operating environments. For electromechanical contacts, contact resistance is the figure of merit and is a strong function of the structure and chemistry of the surface region. Thin (on the order of a few monolayers) insulating or semiconducting overlayers on a metallic conductor can raise contact resistance several orders of magnitude. In this study low temperature (22-100 °C) oxidation kinetics of reactively sputtered Ti and TiN, coatings of varying composition exposed at three humidity levels have been examined by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) depth profiling, angle resolved XPS, and contact resistance measurements. Equilibrium overlayer conductivities can be up to nine orders of magnitude greater for TiN 10 than Ti metal.

Articles you may be interested inIn-operando hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study on the impact of current compliance and switching cycles on oxygen and carbon defects in resistive switching Ti/HfO2/TiN cells Development of time resolved x-ray spectroscopy in high intensity laser-plasma interactions Rev. Sci. Instrum. 77, 10F322 (2006); 10.1063/1.2222340 X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study of TiC films grown by annealing thin Ti films on graphite J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 15, 2029 (1997); 10.1116/1.580675 X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study of the chemical interaction between BN and Ti/TiNMoisture and O 2 levels present during the reactive sputtering deposition of TiN have a marked impact on measured contact resistance. Results of an angular resolved x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) study of sputter deposited TiN as weU as Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) s~ow t~at oxynitrides are the predominant surface species on TiN. Two distinct oxynitride phases wIth dIfferent oxygen contents have been observed on TiN and the relative abundance of each phase appears to be a function of H 2 0 and oxygen levels present during reactive sputtering.

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