Effect of period and degree of unbalancing on the structure and resistivity of Cr/CrN magnetron sputtered nano-multilayers

Cr/CrN nano-multilayers have been produced by varying the period and the degree of unbalancing in a magnetron sputtering system in order to study the influence of these parameters in the electrical properties. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) was used to investigate the microstructure characteristics of the multilayers and the Four Point Probe (FPP) technique in the Van der Pawn mode was used to evaluate electrical resistivity. The results show that the resistivity strongly depends on the period and the degree of unbalancing of the magnetron. These nano-multilayers are proposed to be used as contacts in Cu metallization and as diffusion barriers between copper and silicon.