Nanocrystalline titanium carbide thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering

We investigated the structure and composition of titanium carbide thin films deposited by the reactive magnetron sputter ion plating process as a function of deposition parameters. The films were sputtered onto unheated glass substrates by means of an unbalanced planar d.c. magnetron equipped with a titanium target using a mixture of argon and methane. The deposition parameters ranged from 0.05 Pa to 2 Pa for total working gas pressurep _T, from 10% to 60% (volume) for relative methane concentration in the working gas mixture, from 45 mm to 85 mm for the substrate-to-target distanced _s-t and from −50V to −800V for the substrate biasU _S. It was found that the crystallinity of the thin films strongly decreases with increasingp _T,d _s-t andU _S. The experiments described show the conditions necessary to obtain sputter-deposited nanocrystalline titanium carbide films. This work has been partially supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic under Grant No. 106/96/K245 and by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic under Grant No. VS96 059.