Vanadium and vanadium nitride thin films grown by high power impulse magnetron sputtering

Thin vanadium and vanadium nitride films were grown on SiO2 by non-reactive and reactive high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS), respectively. The film properties were compared to films grown by conventional dc magnetron sputtering (dcMS) at similar conditions. We explored the influence of the stationary magnetic confinement field strength on the film properties and the process parameters. The deposition rate is much lower for non-reactive sputtering by HiPIMS than for dcMS. Furthermore, for both dcMS and HiPIMS the deposition rate is lower for strong magnetic confinement. Structural characterization was carried out using x-ray diffraction and reflection methods as well as atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscope. Both dcMS and HiPIMS grown vanadium films are polycrystalline with similar grain size regardless of magnetic field strength. For dcMS grown vanadium films the surface roughness is higher when a strong magnetic field is used. For both non-reactive growth of vanadium and reactive growth of vanadium nitride the HiPIMS process produces denser films with lower surface roughness than dcMS does. Lowering the magnetic field strength increases the deposition rate significantly for reactive HiPIMS while it increases only slightly in the reactive dcMS case. The films grown by HiPIMS with strong magnetic confinement exhibit higher density and lower roughness. We find that the operating pressure, growth temperature, discharge voltage and film thickness has influence on the properties of HiPIMS grown vanadium nitride films. The films are denser when grown at high temperature, high discharge voltage and low pressure. The density of those films is lower for thicker films and thicker films consist of larger grain size. For all the films explored, higher density coincides with lower surface roughness. Thus, the deposition method, magnetic field strength, growth temperature, discharge voltage, film thickness and growth pressure have a significant influence on the film quality and structural properties, including the grain size for the various orientations.