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Article Dans Une Revue Applied Surface Science Année : 2024

Unravelling the effect of nitrogen on the morphological evolution of thin silver films on weakly-interacting substrates

N. Pliatsikas
B. Krause

Résumé

We study the effect of nitrogen on the morphological evolution of thin silver (Ag) films deposited on weaklyinteracting amorphous carbon (a-C) and silicon oxide (SiO x) surfaces. Films are synthesized at a deposition rate of 0.1 nm⋅s-1 by direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS), high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS), and electron-beam evaporation (EBE). We monitor growth in situ and in real time by measuring the evolution of film stress and optical properties, complemented by ex situ analyses of discontinuous-layer morphologies, film crystal structure, and film composition. We find that addition of molecular nitrogen (N 2) to the plasmagenic gas (Ar) during DCMS and HiPIMS promotes a two-dimensional (2D) morphology. Concurrently, EBE-deposited films exhibit a significantly more pronounced three-dimensional morphological evolution, independently from the gas atmosphere composition. We argue that the 2D morphology in DCMS-and HiPIMS-grown films is enhanced due to incorporation of atomic nitrogen (N)-result of plasma-induced N 2 dissociation-that hinders island reshaping during coalescence. This mechanism is not active during EBE due to the absence of energetic plasma electrons driving N 2 dissociation. The overall results of the study show that accurate control of vapor-phase chemistry is of paramount importance when using gaseous species as agents for manipulating growth in weakly-interacting film-substrate systems.
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Origine : Publication financée par une institution

Dates et versions

hal-04367116 , version 1 (29-12-2023)

Identifiants

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K. Sarakinos, David Babonneau, J. Ramade, Y. Robin, K. Solanki, et al.. Unravelling the effect of nitrogen on the morphological evolution of thin silver films on weakly-interacting substrates. Applied Surface Science, 2024, 649, pp.159209. ⟨10.1016/j.apsusc.2023.159209⟩. ⟨hal-04367116⟩
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