AVS 51st International Symposium
    Advanced Surface Engineering Tuesday Sessions
       Session SE-TuP

Paper SE-TuP5
Oxidation Behavior of Titanium Nitride Films

Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 4:00 pm, Room Exhibit Hall B

Session: Poster Session
Presenter: H.-Y. Chen, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Authors: H.-Y. Chen, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
H.C. Shih, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
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TiN films have been a universal coatings due to their high melting points, extreme hardness, high chemical stability, golden color and so on, and the oxidation of films occurs in the hostile environmental. The oxidation mechanism of TiN films has investigated by their crystal structure and morphology using XRD and Raman scattering spectroscopy and FESEM. TiN films were synthesized by using cathodic arc plasma deposition technique because its high ionization ratio, fast deposition rate. After films deposition, the films were annealed in static air at 500°C to 800°C for 2 h. The XRD and Raman spectra indicated that the rutile TiO@sub 2@ was identified above 600°C and its relative intensity rapidly increased with temperatures. The films completely oxidized into rutile phase above 700°C. The as-deposited TiN films were columnar structure. Nevertheless, the oxide layer appeared on the top of columnar TiN films above 600°C. Furthermore, the microstructure of the oxide was porous with the pore size of several nanometers within the oxide layer at 600°C. As increasing annealing temperature, the oxide morphology possessed elongated grain structure with the aspect ratio of ten and the pore size within the oxide layer ranged in several ten nm, which indicated the densification occurring. Form the results, the oxide layer obvious grow inward with temperatures, which indicates the oxidation of TiN films is inward oxidation, meanwhile the oxide thickness was measured with temperature and the active energy for the oxidation was deduced, which was 110±10 kJ/mol.