Characterization of iron doped titanium nitride thin films prepared by magnetron sputtering

Iron-doped titanium nitride films deposed on glass substrates were prepared by magnetron sputtering technique. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was employed to analyze the phases existed in the films. Investigations have shown that as-deposited films were XRD-amorphous, and the TiN phase was formed in the film after additional annealing. It was found that iron-doped TiN films preserved the same crystal structure as TiN. The ferromagnetic properties of iron doped TiN films have been measured using vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and the electric resistances of the films were also determined by IR four-probe methods. The experiment results proved that the iron-doped TiN films possessed ferromagnetic property with low electric resistance at room temperature. It was investigated that the saturation magnetization was about 2.21x10(8) A/m, the coercivity about 23 kA/m, and the electric resisitivity 1.401 X 10(-6) Omega.m for typical Fe-doped-TiN-films sample.