Ion beam measurements for the investigation of TiN thin films deposited on different substrates by vacuum arc discharge

Titanium nitride thin films were deposited on different substrates using vacuum arc discharge system. Simultaneous ion beam analysis measurements including elastic backscattering (EBS) and nuclear reaction analysis (NRA); were applied for both composition analysis and thickness measurements of the prepared TiN films. Experimental conditions have been optimized to avoid overlapping of peaks of different nuclear reactions products, especially those related to interaction between ion beam and light elements present in totally different substrates. Independent compliment measurements utilizing time-of-flight elastic recoil detection analysis (TOF-ERDA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements were also applied to verify the experimental findings obtained by EBS and NRA measurements. The results have shown that all prepared TiN films have N/Ti ratio of around 1, with low levels of contamination elements.