Deposition of TiCrN on silicon substrate using radio frequency magnetron sputtering

The ternary titanium chromium nitride (TiCrN) thin film on Si (100) substrate without any external temperature was deposited by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The substrate was kept at a distance of 35 mm from the target. The growth morphology, crystalline structure, roughness, contact angle, and thickness of the coatings were studied as a function of the input RF power and negative bias voltage. The grazing incident X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) results show that TiCrN diffraction peaks appeared only in samples with substrate bias = -70 V. The surface morphology was investigated by Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The films change from hydrophilic to hydrophobic with the increase of negative bias voltage. The roughness and contact angle of the samples increase with the decrease in the RF power from 300 W to 200 W. In both cases (a) and (b), the deposition rate increases as a result of an increase in the target power. Keywords