Preparation and characterization of copper nitride films at various nitrogen contents by reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering

摘要

The semiconducting Cu_3N films were successfully deposited on glass substrates by reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering in a mixture gas of nitrogen and argon. The influence of nitrogen content in a fixed total sputtering gas flow on the preferential crystalline orientation, the mean crystalline grains size, the electrical resistivity, and the optical energy gap of as-deposited films were investigated. X-ray diffraction analysis show: that the films were polycrystalline Cu_3N and the preferential orientation is greatly affected by the N_2 content. All the Cu_3N films have smooth surfaces with dense and continuous microstructure. The electrical resistivity and the optical energy gap of these as-deposited Cu_3N films wer< measured to be in the range of 1.51 X 10~2 - 1.129 X 10~3 ft cm, and 1.34-1.75 eV, respectively.