Deposition of epitaxial transition metal carbide films and superlattices by simultaneous direct current metal magnetron sputtering and C_60 evaporation

摘要

Thin epitaxial TiC and VC films and superlattices have been deposited on MgO(001) by simultaneous sputtering of the metals and evaporation of C_60. It was found that epitaxial growth conditions for TiC could be maintained down to a temperature of 100 deg C, while the epitaxial growth of VC required 200 deg C. Epitaxial VC films were completely relaxed at all growth temperatures, while a change from a relaxed to a strained growth behavior was observed for TiC films. The structural quality of the TiC films was better than for the VC films. A general observation was that a plasma-assisted deposition process yields films with a higher quality and allows epitaxial growth at lower temperatures than for a pure coevaporation process.