AGING EFFECTS OF THIN-FILMS PREPARED BY ION-BEAM-ASSISTED DEPOSITION - A MULTITECHNIQUE CHARACTERIZATION

Thin titanium nitride (TiN) films have been prepared by contemporaneou s Ti evaporation and 30 keV N-2(+) implantation onto Si(100) wafers, i n the presence of a N-2 partial atmosphere. The films have been charac terized chemically and compositionally both by Auger electron spectros copy (AES) and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) checking the hom ogeneity level, the degree of gaseous contamination, the different com pounds formed mainly by titanium and their depth distribution. Brillou in scattering measurements allowed determination of the Rayleigh veloc ity at various angles of incidence. We also found evidence of a Sezawa mode, confined in the overlayer. The films, which consist of a homoge neous outer layer above a relatively wide interface region with the su bstrate, show ageing effects. On a mesoscopic scale, film structure ap pears porous.