Optical and mechanical properties of amorphous Mg-Si-O-N thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering

Abstract In this work, amorphous thin films in Mg-Si-O-N system typically containing >15 at.% Mg and 35 at.% N were prepared in order to investigate especially the dependence of optical and mechanical properties on Mg composition. Reactive RF magnetron co-sputtering from magnesium and silicon targets were used for the deposition of Mg-Si-O-N thin films. Films were deposited on float glass, silica wafers and sapphire substrates in an Ar, N2 and O2 gas mixture. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, spectroscopic ellipsometry, and nanoindentation were employed to characterize the composition, surface morphology, and properties of the films. The films consist of N and Mg contents up to 40 at.% and 28 at.%, respectively and have good adhesion to substrates and are chemically inert. The thickness and roughness of the films increased with increasing content of Mg. Both hardness (16–21 GPa) and reduced elastic modulus (120–176 GPa) are strongly correlated with the amount of Mg content. The refractive index up to 2.01 and extinction coefficient up to 0.18 were found to increase with Mg content. The optical band gap (3.1–4.3) decreases with increasing the Mg content. Thin film deposited at substrate temperature of 100 °C shows a lower value of hardness (10 GPa), refractive index (1.75), and higher values of reduced elastic modulus (124 GPa) as compared to the thin film deposited at 310 °C and 510 °C respectively, under identical synthesis parameters.