Investigation of NbN and Nb-Si-N Coatings Deposited by Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

NbN and Nb-Si-N films were deposited by magnetron sputtering the Nb and Si targets on silicon wafers at various bias voltages, Us. The deposited films were annealed to establish their thermal stability. The films were investigated by atomic force microscope, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and nanoindentation. The NbN films were nanostructured, and the Nb-Si-N films had a nanocomposite structure, and represented an aggregation of δ-NbNx nanocrystallites embedded into the amorphous Si3N4 tissue (nc-δ-NbNx/a-Si3N4).

Influence of deposition conditions on structure parameters and mechanical properties of multi-element coatings based on niobium nitride

“…Structural parameters of coatings (the lattice spacing а, the half-width of the X-ray diffraction line β004) and residual compressive stresses σ0 were studied using the Xray diffraction meter «ДРОН-3M», sizes of coherent scattering regions (CSR) D were calculated using the method described in the paper [10]. Micro-hardness Hϻ, elasticity modulus Е and stress intensity coefficient KIC of coatings were determined using methods [13,14]. As Table 2 shows, coatings NbTiZrN and NbTiAlN are characterized with higher parameter values of the lattice, smaller value of the X-ray line half-width and substantially smaller compression residual stresses (by 1,6…2,7 times smaller compared to NbN), slight increase of CSR block sizes.…”

Nanocomposite Nb-Al-N coatings: Experimental and theoretical principles of phase transformations

“…NbN based coatings are quite perspective for industrial application due to their high melting temperature, splendid physico-mechanical and superconducting properties [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Such coatings can be widely used for fabrication of Josephson's large integrated circuits [10][11][12][13], bolometers [10]- [15] and superconducting onephoton detectors [1,4,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”