Growth and Characterisation of Pulsed-Laser Deposited Tin Thin Films on Cube-Textured Copper at Different Temperatures

Abstract

High-quality titanium nitride thin films have been grown on a cube-textured copper surface via pulsed laser deposition. The growth of TiN thin films has been very sensitive to pre-treatment procedure and substrate temperature. It is difficult to grow heteroexpitaxial TiN films directly on copper tape due to large differences in lattice constants, thermal expansion coefficients of the two materials as well as polycrystalline structure of substrate. The X-Ray diffraction measurement revealed presence of high peaks belonged to TiN(200) and TiN(111) thin films, depending on used etcher of copper surface. The electron diffraction patterns of TiN(200)/Cu films confirmed the single-crystal nature of the films with cube-on-cube epitaxy. The high-resolution microscopy on our films revealed sharp interfaces between copper and titanium nitride with no presence of interfacial reaction.

Keywords

• Thin films
• Coated conductors
• Deposition
• PLD
• Microstructure