The biaxial alignment of TiN on Si(111) films prepared by nitrogen ion beam assisted deposition at room temperature was studied. By reactive deposition within a nitrogen environment a preferred {111} orientation was obtained the growing TiN crystallites. In contrast, a nitrogen ion bombardment perpendicular to the surface of the substrate during deposition causes an {001} alignment of the crystallites. A 55° ion beam incidence produces both {111}-orientation relative to the surface and {100}-orientation relative to the ion beam. This results in a totally fixed orientation of the crystallites. Simultaneous UV-light illumination during ion bombardment promotes a uniformly oriented growth.

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Over the last decade ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) has become a well-known technique for deposition of thin films because of its ability to control properties of coatings. A new IBAD system is introduced which includes a facility to illuminate samples by UV light during the deposition process in order to enhance motion of deposited atoms and interfacial reactions between substrate and coating. The IBAD system consists of two vacuum chambers, the preparation chamber and the analysis chamber, which are connected by a straight tube for sample transfer. Samples may be moved through the tube between the two chambers by a linear feedthrough. The preparation chamber includes a filamentless rf ion source, an electron-beam evaporator, and a tube with a nozzle delivering reactive gases near the sample during deposition. In addition to the ion-assisted deposition process, a technique based on photon irradiation has been employed to obtain significant improvements of structure and properties of deposited metal layers. As these films reflect a large fraction of light in the visible range, we use UV-light illumination. The samples are irradiated by UV light with a mercury arc lamp during deposition. To achieve the high degree of process automation most process parameters are controlled with a computer system. The analysis chamber includes a reverse view LEED/AES system, which is used to analyze composition and surface structure of thin the films.

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Titanium nitride films were produced by a newly developed photon and ion beam assisted deposition system (PHIBAD system). With an electron beam evaporator titanium was deposited on silicon substrates in a controlled nitrogen environment. Optionally, the growing films were bombarded with argon or nitrogen ions and/or illuminated with UV light. With these procedures δ‐TiN films with distinct chemical composition were formed. The composition determination was done with elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) to avoid the problems usually occurring with standard methods like AES. The results demonstrate that both impurity content and nitrogen to titanium ratio of the films are dependent on the ion current density. UV light illumination also has a positive influence on film composition. Generally, a certain energy transfer to the growing film is necessary to cause composition changes.