Influence of annealing on structural, morphological, compositional and surface properties of magnetron sputtered nickel–titanium thin films

Thin films of NiTi were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering from an equiatomic alloy target (Ni/Ti: 50/50 at.%). The films were deposited without intentional heating of the substrates. The thickness of the deposited films was approximately 2 μm. The structure and morphology of NiTi films annealed at different temperatures were analyzed in order to understand the effect of annealing on physical properties of the films. The compositional investigations of fresh and annealed films were also evaluated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies showed that as-deposited films were amorphous in nature whereas annealed films were found to poly-crystalline with the presence of Austenite phase as the dominant phase. AFM investigations showed higher grain size and surface roughness values in the annealed films. In annealed films, the grain size and film roughness values were increased from 10 to 85 nm and 2–18 nm. Film composition measured by EDS were found to 52.5 atomic percent of Ni and 47.5 atomic percent of Ti. XPS investigations, demonstrated the presence of Ni content on the surface of the films, in fresh films, whereas annealed films did not show any nickel. From HR-XPS investigations, it can be concluded that annealed NiTi films have higher tendency to form metal oxide (titanium dioxide) layer on the surface of the films than fresh NiTi films.