Room temperature deposition of crystalline HfN thin films by DC reactive magnetron sputtering

Abstract Crystalline hafnium nitride (HfN) thin films were successfully prepared by direct current (DC) reactive magnetron sputtering on a silicon substrate at room temperature. The effects of deposition time on physical structure, morphological, film composition, and optical property of the HfN thin film were systematically investigated by grazing incident X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), ultraviolet–visible-near infrared spectrophotometry, and color measurement. It was found that all prepared HfN thin films were cubic structure with (111) and (200). The FE-SEM images shown that the morphologies of the HfN films depict a dense and columnar structure which good adhesion with the silicon substrate. With the different deposition time, the HfN thin films exhibit different reflection, lightness, and color. It was found that the HfN thin films become high reflectance when the film thickness increases. In addition, the film color of all samples was yellow tones with the lightness of 55–65.