Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T13:01:01.725Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Effects of elastic strain and diffusion-limited aggregation on morphological instabilities in sputtered nitride thin films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2014

Kuraganti Vasu ,
Mamidipudi Ghanashyam Krishna  and
Kuppuswamy Anantha Padmanabhan
Kuraganti Vasu*
Affiliation:
School of Engineering Science and Technology, Centre for Nanotechnology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500046, India
Mamidipudi Ghanashyam Krishna
Affiliation:
School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046, India; and Centre for Nanotechnology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046, India
Kuppuswamy Anantha Padmanabhan
Affiliation:
Centre for Nanotechnology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046, India; and School of Engineering Sciences and Technology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500 046, India
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The nature of morphological instabilities in sputtered titanium and niobium nitride thin films grown on amorphous borosilicate glass and single-crystal Si (311) substrates is investigated. All the films were grown by RF magnetron sputtering at constant power and pressure but with thickness varying from 40 to 400 nm and substrate temperatures of 250–300 °C. The surfaces of the thin films can be divided into two areas: one in which the morphology is smooth with densely packed grains and the other in which there are morphological instabilities. A closer observation of the morphological instabilities reveals the coexistence of elastic strain-induced Asaro–Tiller–Grinfeld (ATG) type of instability and dendritic and snowflake structures due to diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA). The ATG instabilities extend over lengths of several tens of micrometers, whereas the DLA structures are confined to lengths of less than 10 μm in the same film. At low thickness (40–100 nm) only the elastic strain-induced instabilities emerge. High growth rates and a thickness of 150 nm are required to cause DLA and coexistence of the two kinds of instabilities. It has also been found that crystallization is not a prerequisite for the formation of dendritic structures.

Keywords

microstructureTiN thin filmssputtering
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 29 , Issue 16 , 28 August 2014 , pp. 1711 - 1720
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Karr, B.W., Petrov, I., Cahill, D.G., and Greene, J.E.: Morphology of epitaxial TiN (001) grown by magnetron sputtering. Appl. Phys. Lett. 70, 1703 (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. and Grant, M.: Model of surface instabilities induced by stress. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1736 (1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eaglesham, D.J. and Cerullo, M.: Dislocation-free Stranski-Krastanov growth of Ge on Si (100). Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 1943 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, F.: Modeling and simulation of strain-mediated nanostructure formation on surface. In Handbook of Theoretical and Computational Nanotechnology, Rieth, M. and Schommers, W. eds. (American Scientific Publishers, Valencia, CA, 2006).Google Scholar
Colin, J. and Grilhe, J.: Nanostructure instability induced by anisotropic epitaxial stresses. Phys. Rev. E 80, 052601 (2009).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chiu, C., Huang, Z., and Poh, C.T.: Formation of nanostructures by the activated Stranski-Krastanov transition method. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 136105 (2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, P. and Kern, R.: Equilibrium nano-shape change induced by epitaxial stress: Effect of surface stress. Appl. Surf. Sci. 164, 68 (2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moison, J.M., Houzay, F., Barthe, F., Leprince, L., Andre, E., and Vatel, O.: Self‐organized growth of regular nanometer‐scale InAs dots on GaAs. Appl. Phys. Lett. 64, 196 (1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grinfeld, M.A.: The stress driven instability in elastic crystals: Mathematical models and physical manifestations. J. Nonlinear Sci. 3, 35 (1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asaro, R.J. and Tiller, W.A.: Interface morphology development during stress corrosion cracking: Part I. Via surface diffusion. Metall. Trans. 3, 1789 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, B.J., Voorhees, P.W., and Davis, S.H.: Morphological instability in epitaxial strained dislocation-free solid films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 3696 (1991).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Srolovitz, D.J.: On the stability of surfaces of stressed solids. Acta Metall. 37, 621 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeon, D., Cha, P.R., and Grant, M.: Phase field model of stress-induced surface instabilities: Surface diffusion. Acta Mater. 54, 1623 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aqua, J.N., Frisch, T., and Verga, A.: Nonlinear evolution of a morphological instability in a strained epitaxial films. Phys. Rev. B 76, 165319 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chirranjeevi, B.G., Abinandanan, T.A., and Gururajan, M.P.: A phase field study of morphological instabilities in multilayer thin films. Acta Mater. 57, 1060 (2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Politi, P., Grenet, G., Marty, A., Ponchet, A., and Villain, J.: Instabilities in crystal growth by atomic or molecular beams. Phys. Rep. 324, 271 (2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aqua, J.N., Gouyé, A., Auphan, T., Frisch, T., Ronda, A., and Berbezier, I.: Orientation dependence of the elastic instability on strained SiGe films. Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 161909 (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witten, T.A. and Sander, L.M.: Diffusion-limited aggregation. Phys. Rev. B 27, 5686 (1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hou, C., Meng, G., Huang, Q., Zhu, C., Huang, Z., Chen, B., and Sun, K.: Ag-nanoparticle-decorated Au-fractal patterns on bowl-like-dimple arrays on Al foil as an effective SERS substrate for the rapid detection of PCBs. Chem. Commun. 50, 569 (2014).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liu, H. and Reinke, P.: C60 thin film growth on graphite: Coexistence of spherical and fractal-dendritic islands. J. Chem. Phys. 124, 164707 (2006).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sahoo, N.K., Thakur, S., and Tokas, R.B.: Fractals and superstructures in gadolinia thin film morphology: Influence of process variables on their characteristic parameters. Thin Solid Films 503, 85 (2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hou, S.M., Ouyang, M., Chen, H.F., Liu, W.M., Xue, Z.Q., Wu, Q.D., Zhang, H.X., Gao, H.J., and Pang, S.J.: Fractal structure in the silver oxide thin film. Thin Solid Films 315, 322 (1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welzel, U., Ligot, J., Lamparter, P., Vermeulen, A.C., and Mittemeijer, E.J.: Stress analysis of polycrystalline thin films and surface regions by x-ray diffraction. J. Appl. Crystallogr. 38, 1 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, S. and Allen, L.: Thermal stability of α‐titanium in contact with titanium nitride. J. Appl. Phys. 79, 2446 (1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lima, M.M.R.A., Monteiro, R.C.C., Graça, M.P.F., and De Silva, M.G.F.: Structural, electrical and thermal properties of borosilicate glass–alumina composites. J. Alloys Compd. 538, 66 (2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spaepen, F.: Interfaces and stresses in thin films. Acta Mater. 48, 31 (2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vasu, K., Krishna, M.G., and Padmanabhan, K.A.: Substrate-temperature dependent structure and composition variations in RF magnetron sputtered titanium nitride thin films. Appl. Surf. Sci. 257, 3069 (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carel, R., Thompson, C.V., and Frost, H.J.: Computer simulation of strain energy effects vs surface and interface energy effects on grain growth in thin films. Acta Mater. 44, 2479 (1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiran, M.S.R.N., Krishna, M.G., and Padmanabhan, K.A.: Substrate-dependent structure, microstructure, composition and properties of nanostructured TiN films. Solid State Commun. 151, 561 (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Gall, J.F.: Random trees and applications. Probab. Surv. 2, 245 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marka, S., Menaka, , Ganguli, A.K., and Krishna, M.G.: Effect of substrate and film thickness on the growth, structure, mechanical and optical properties of chromium diboride thin films. Surf. Coat. Technol. 209, 23 (2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brongersma, S.H., Castell, M.R., Perovic, D.D., and Allmang, M.Z.: Stress-induced shape transition of CoSi2 cluster on Si (100). Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 3795 (1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tersoff, J. and Tromp, R.M.: Shape transition in growth of strained islands: Spontaneous formation of quantum wires. Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2782 (1993).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gránásy, L., Pusztai, T., Börzsönyi, T., Warren, J.A., and Douglas, J.F.: A general mechanism of polycrystalline growth. Nat. Mater. 3, 645 (2004).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed