Characterization of cubic boron nitride thin films deposited by RF sputter

Cubic boron nitride (c-BN) thin films have been deposited on Si substrates by radio frequency sputter. Sputtering target was hot pressed hexagonal boron nitride of 4N purity. Sputtering gas was the mixture of nitrogen and argon. During depositing c-BN thin films, substrates were biased by dc voltage negatively with respect to ground. By optimizing the deposition conditions, the boron nitride (BN) films containing a large amount of cubic phase were obtained. The samples were characterized with Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). According to FTIR, the cubic phase content of the c-BN thin films was evaluated to be 92. The B/N ratio was estimated to be approximately I from XPS. The AFM shows that the c-BN thin films delaminated from Si substrates obviously.