Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and structural analysis of DC reactive magnetron sputtered titanium nitride thin films on glass substrates

Titanium nitride thin films were deposited on sodalime glass substrate using DC reactive magnetron sputtering technique with 99.99 % pure titanium target. High purity nitrogen and argon gases were used as the reactive and sputtering gases respectively. The sputtering deposition time was fixed at 10 min for all samples, while the chamber sputtering pressure was varied from 0.80 to 11.33 Pa with corresponding change in the nitrogen partial pressure. The films were characterized using Rutherford backscattering (RBS) spectroscopy, UV–visible spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy. The RBS studies revealed disparity in film thicknesses and stoichiometry with respect to the deposition sputtering pressure. Up to 10 % oxygen concentration was observed in films deposited at relatively low sputtering pressures of 0.80 and 1.07 Pa, while no oxygen was detected in the films deposited at higher sputtering pressure. High pressure sputtered TiN x films showed distinct optical properties reminiscent of indium tin oxide with high transmission of 86.74 % maximum in the visible range and wide band gap energy of 3.78 eV.