Nitrogen Emission in Reactive Magnetron Sputtering Plasmas During the Deposition of Titanium Nitride Thin Film

摘要

In the present study, reactive magnetron sputtering plasmas were produced using pulse-modulated radio frequency (rf) power supply connected to titanium sputter target. The pulse duty ratio were varied at 30, 50 and 70 %. Nitrogen and argon gas were introduced into the plasmas at flow rate of 100 and 10 sccm, respectively. In addition, the total gas pressure were varied at 10, 50 and 100 mTorr. Then, an optical emission from nitrogen plasmas were observed using the high-resolution spectrometer. From the peak intensities of nitrogen emission at 774.0 and 775.4 mn, the gas temperature in reactive magnetron sputtering plasmas was evaluated. We found that nitrogen gas temperature is significantly influenced by the total gas pressure and the duty ratio of pulse-modulated rf power supply. The gas temperature ranged between 300 and 450 K was observed, indicating that this pulse-modulated rf sputtering technique is useful to deposit a thin film on temperature sensitive substrates.