Titanium nitride thin film for temperature sensing and its conductive mechanism in the cryogenic region

Abstract

Titanium nitride (TiN x ) thin films were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering on polished and oxidized silicon wafers under different N 2 flow rates, and temperature sensors based on the TiN x films were fabricated. The performance of three typical sensors were measured in the temperature range of 4.2 K-300 K, and the results indicate that TiN x thin film sensors are suitable for cryogenic temperature measurements. Furthermore, the conduction mechanism of TiN x thin film in the temperature range of 4.2 K-300 K was studied for the first time, and it can be described by an impurity conduction mechanism. Finally, the contribution of the grain and grain boundary on the film resistance and temperature coefficient of resistance was studied by AC impedance analysis, and the characterization result indicates that the impurity conduction mechanism of the TiN x thin film is dominated by the grain.

Conductive TiN thin films grown by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition: Effects of N-sources and thermal treatments

“…Though conduction channels are created during this structural film modification. Those charge pathways are most likely to be grains boundaries as proposed by Lin et al 65 on polycrystalline TiN x films grown by magnetron sputtering. Since the composition does not evolve drastically after annealing, it seems it has no strong effect on the variation of the conductivity of the films.…”

Influence of magnetron sputtering process parameters on low-temperature electrical transport characteristics of zirconium oxynitride thin films

“…In 1987, Yotsuya et al [11] developed a ZrN temperature sensing film with high sensitivity, short thermal response time and small magnetoresistance. So far, many transition metal oxynitride films have been used as temperature sensing film in cryogenic thermometers, such as chromium nitride [12] (CrN), Titanium nitride [13] (TiN), hafnium nitride [14] (HfN) and so on.…”