Tantalum nitride thin film resistors by low temperature reactive sputtering for plastic electronics

Abstract

This article describes the fabrication and characterisation of tantalum nitride (TaN) thin film for applications in plastic electronics. Thin films of comparable thickness (50-60 nm) have been deposited by RF-magnetron-reactive sputtering at low temperature (100• C) and their structure and physical (electrical and mechanical) properties have been correlated by using sheet resistance, stress measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM), XPS, and SIMS. Different film compositions have been obtained by varying the argon to nitrogen flow ratio in the sputtering chamber. XPS showed that 5 : 1, 2 : 1 and 1 : 1 Ar : N 2 ratios gives Ta 2 N, TaN and Ta 3 N 5 phases, respectively. Sheet resistance revealed an increase in resistivity ongoing from the Ta 2 N phase to the Ta 3 N 5 one. The electrical properties of these films are comparable to those obtained by high temperature deposition process already reported in literature. Furthermore, a roughness and grain size modulation of the above films can be obtained by applying an RF negative bias during deposition without affecting the electrical resistivity.

Low‐temperature sintered conductive silver patterns obtained by inkjet printing for plastic electronics

“…Among these challenges, some are related to fundamental properties of the different materials involved such as metals, semiconductors, dielectrics, which have to withstand important constraints such as low cost, low processing temperature compatible with plastic substrates and mechanical flexibility. [2] To cope with this need, one strategy is offered by the use of inkjet printing of proper chemically formulated precursors on plastics. The direct thin film printing allows the elimination of expensive photolithographic subtractive processes.…”

Porous Tantalum Nitride Single Crystal at Two‐Centimeter Scale with Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Performance

“…The porous Ta 3 N 5 single crystal shows the surface termination layer of Ta atoms even though negligible content of oxygen adsorption is present as confirmed in the high-sensitive low energy ion scattering (HS-LEIS) in Figure 3 d. XPS in the inset further presents the chemical interaction between Ta and N with peaks at 24.8 and 26.8 eV observed for Ta and 396.5 eV observed for N. [23,24] We further conduct XPS experiments of porous TaON and Ta 3 N 5 single crystals, as shown in Fig- ure S10. Both TaON and Ta 3 N 5 single crystals demonstrate almost identical peaks for N and Ta elements, which confirms the similar chemical interactions between N and Ta atoms in the lattice.…”

“…The clear and precise coordination of the Ta atom with N atoms is observed and confirmed to be long‐range ordering, which further validates the single crystallinity even in a porous microstructure. The porous Ta 3 N 5 single crystal shows the surface termination layer of Ta atoms even though negligible content of oxygen adsorption is present as confirmed in the high‐sensitive low energy ion scattering (HS‐LEIS) in Figure d. XPS in the inset further presents the chemical interaction between Ta and N with peaks at 24.8 and 26.8 eV observed for Ta and 396.5 eV observed for N . We further conduct XPS experiments of porous TaON and Ta 3 N 5 single crystals, as shown in Figure S10.…”

Centimeter-Scale Porous Ta3N5 Single Crystal Monolith Enhances Photoelectrochemical Performance

“…The inserted XPS demonstrates the chemical interaction between Ta and N. Two peaks (25.1 and 27.0 eV) for Ta and one peak at 396.6 eV for N are observed. 21,22 Although lattice oxygen in Ta 3 N 5 provides a negligible XPS signal, the adsorbed oxygen in HS-LEIS accounts for most of the oxygen on the surface. Figure 2b shows that there is little difference (∼0.02 Ω cm) in the measured resistivity of Ta 3 N 5 under heating (temperature from 50 to 300 K) and cooling (temperature from 300 to 50 K) conditions, indicating that the material has good thermal stability and electronic conductivity.…”