Influence of Deposition and Annealing Temperature on Resistivity and Nanoindentation Characteristics of Reactive Magnetic Sputtered NiO Films

In this study, NiO films were processed on p-type Si by magnetron sputtering technique under the mixture of argon (Ar) and oxygen (O2) gas atmosphere at room temperature and 300 0C. The microstructure, nanoindentation, and electrical properties of the NiO films were compared with the as-deposited and subsequent vacuum-annealed films at 300 0C for one hour. The grain size and phase structure of NiO films were determined by an X-ray diffraction study. The microstructure and morphology of the resultant NiO films were analyzed by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that NiO films were nanocrystalline with grain size in the range of 14-32 nm. The formation of NiSi2 was noticed at the interface of vacuum-annealed NiO films. Nanoindentation results showed an increment in the hardness of annealed NiO films over as-deposited films at the same temperature. In contrast, Van der Pauw’s four-point probe method showed a reduced resistivity of vacuum-annealed NiO films which can be potential candidates for electrical contact applications.