Photon and ion beam assisted deposition of titanium nitride

A newly developed ion beam assisted deposition system is introduced which includes a facility to illuminate samples by UV light during the deposition process in order to enhance motion of deposited atoms, interfacial reactions between substrate and coating as well as reactions between growing layer and environmental gas. This PHIBAD system was used to produce thin δ-TiN by deposition of titanium on Si(001) under low-energy argon ion irradiation and simultaneous illumination with UV light in a defined nitrogen environment at room temperature. The composition of the TiN films was investigated by elastic recoil detection and the structure by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The impurity content (oxygen, carbon) of TiN films formed by Ar+ ion assisted deposition is significatly lower than in films produced without ion irradiation. The orientation of the TiN crystallites changes from 〈111〉 without ion irradiation to 〈001〉 under ion impingement. The uniform alignment becomes stronger with increasing ion energy. The UV-light illumination during deposition in a gas environment without ion irradiation leads to stronger (111) and with ion assisted deposition to stronger (001) oriented TiN films.