Electrical characterization of Ag:TiN thin films produced by glancing angle deposition

Columnar Ag:TiN thin films were prepared by d.c. magnetron sputtering with a Ag content of similar to 10 at.% on silicon and glass substrates. The Glancing Angle Deposition, GLAD, technique was implemented to transform the typical columnar microstructure into the desired inclined, zigzag and spiral profiles. A periodic variation of the angle of incidence `alpha' (40 degrees, 60 degrees and 80 degrees) was applied to deposit Ag:TiN thin films with inclined, zigzag and spiral microstructures. The film's electrical properties were studied. Higher alpha values lead to more porous microstructures with column angle beta varying from 13 degrees (alpha=40 degrees) to 30 degrees (alpha=80 degrees) for 8 zigzags. Resistivity, rho, at 293 K or versus temperature was found to be connected to the porosity and beta angles. The more compact films exhibited lower and more stable resistivity values than the more porous ones. Ag segregation and TiN columnar oxidation are favored by temperature and were also found to depend on the produced architectures. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.