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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
The pulsed-laser deposition technique has been used to form thin films of TiN on (100)-oriented single crystal substrates of silicon and rocksalt. Using atomic force microscopy, it was revealed that TiN films grown on silicon at substrate temperatures ranging from 50°C to 500°C were extremely smooth—the mean roughness being ~ 0.2 nm. Thin TiN films deposited on freshly cleaved NaCl were found to be epitaxial at substrate temperatures as low as 50°C. Epitaxy in this latter system is believed to be due to the structural similarity between film and substrate and the almost exact 4:3 coincident site lattice.