Chemical vapor deposition of titanium nitride thin films: kinetics and experiments

Juan Su (1) , Rapahel Boichot (1) , Elisabeth Blanquet (1) , Frederic Mercier (1) , Michel Pons (1)

1 SIMaP - Science et Ingénierie des Matériaux et Procédés

Titanium nitride (TiN) films were grown by CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) from 11 titanium chlorides generated in situ by direct chlorination of titanium metal, ammonia (NH3) and 12 hydrogen (H2) as carrier gas on single crystal c-plane sapphire (Al2O3), cemented carbides (WC-Co), 13 stainless steel (AFNOR Z150CDV12) and amorphous graphite substrates. Kinetic pathways 14 involving four surface reactions has been proposed to simulate the growth rate. The proposed 15 model has been validated by experiments performed at different temperatures (650-1400 °C), 16 pressures (300-1000 Pa), with different amount of precursors (N/Ti ratio in gas phase) and on 17 different substrates. The study shows that on polycrystalline materials, the crystal orientation 18 depends on supersaturation while (111) preferred orientation is forced by underlying c-plane 19 sapphire whatever the supersaturation. The low N/Ti ratio in gas phase leads to low growth rate 20 and dense TiN film which is the key to obtain golden TiN. The high growth rate corresponds to 21 brown TiN. Globally, the study shows that golden color is independent from texture and is just the 22 natural aspect of a dense stoichiometric TiN layer. 23

Mots clés: TiN; Chemical Vapor Deposition; Supersaturation; Decorative and functional coatings

Domaines: Matériaux

Juan Su, Rapahel Boichot, Elisabeth Blanquet, Frederic Mercier, Michel Pons. Chemical vapor deposition of titanium nitride thin films: kinetics and experiments. CrystEngComm, 2019, 21 (26), pp.3974-3981. ⟨10.1039/C9CE00488B⟩. ⟨hal-02315144⟩