REACTIVE SPUTTERING OF TITANIUM DIBORIDE AND TITANIUM DISILICIDE

Nanocomposite films of titanium nitride in either boron nitride or sil icon nitride matrices were prepared by reactive sputtering of titanium diboride or titanium disilicide targets in a nitrogen plasma. These f ilms were expected to have high dielectric constants and in the case o f the silicon nitride matrix high hardness. The films were characteriz ed by a variety of physicochemical techniques including photoelectron spectroscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, RES, and transmi ssion electron microscopy. The films derived from titanium diboride in corporated oxygen as an inadvertent impurity in the form of titanium m onoxide and dioxide. A silicon oxynitride underlayer is suggested by t he RES analysis of the silicon nitride based film, apparently arising from exposure of the native oxide on silicon to the nitrogen plasma. C apacitance measurements of the films showed moderately high dielectric constants of about 30-60 and a hardness of 11 GPa for the silicon nit ride nanocomposite. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.