Effect of thickness on the structure, composition and properties of titanium nitride nano-coatings

Titanium nitride (TiNx) coatings were grown by magnetron sputtering onto Si(100) substrates by varying time of deposition to produce coatings with variable thickness (dTiN) in the range of 20–120 nm. TiNx coatings were characterized by studying their structure, composition, and mechanical properties. Nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) combined with Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) analyses indicate that the grown coatings were stoichiometric TiN. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurements indicate that the texturing of TiN coatings changes as a function of dTiN. The (111) and (002) peaks appear initially; (111) becomes intense while (002) disappears with increasing dTiN. Dense, columnar grain structure was evident for all the coatings in electron microscopy analyses. The residual stress for TiN coatings with dTiN~120 nm was 1.07 GPa in compression while thinner samples exhibit higher values of stress.