Effects of thermal history on the electrical properties of amorphous carbon nitride films prepared by reactive sputtering

摘要

The effects of thermal history on the electrical properties of amorphous carbon nitride (a-CN_x) films were investigated. a-CN_x films were prepared by reactive RF magnetron sputtering at 873 K. The temperature dependence of electrical conductivity was measured in the temperature range from 300 to 473 K in a vacuum chamber. Sample heating was repeated nine times. The initial conductivity increased markedly after the first process, which is probably caused by eliminating nitrogen atoms from the film surface. In spite of the same thermal history, conductivity hysteresis was observed by repeating all the processes.