Surface morphology and growth mechanism of magnetron sputtered CrN films on silicon substrate

The CrN films were deposited on silicon substrate by direct current(DC) magnetron sputtering.The atomic force microscope(AFM),scanning electron microscope(SEM) and X-ray diffractometer(XRD) were used to analyze film surface morphology and phase structure.The dynamics of film growth processes was investigated.The results show that CrN films are formed only when the deposition time is enough(1 800 s).With the growth of films the surface grains change from pyramidal structure to the coexistence of pyramidal and cellular structure,and the film surface roughness increases gradually.The growth exponent is β=0.50.