Manipulation of texture by low-energy ion beams: Example ion assisted deposition of titanium nitride

The effects of the incident angle and ion current density on the texture of polycrystalline TiN films grown by low-energy nitrogen ion beam assisted deposition have been investigated. The titanium layers were deposited on silicon in high vacuum under 2 keV nitrogen ion bombardment at room temperature under selected incident angles of the assisting ion beam of 0°, 45° and 54.7°. In dependence on the ion current density the [001} fibre texture and the biaxial {111}, {001} and {011} textures were detected for the bombardment under the different incident angles. The preferred crystalline orientations are discussed on the base of the dominate influence of the ion beam and the deposited energy per atom on the orientation of the growing film.