Several refractory nitrides of transition metals, e. g. Ta
2N, TaN, TiN, ZrN etc, have been considered for use in thin film resistors, because of their excellent stability. But, in these binary systems, the relationships between the electrical characteristics and the chemical composition have been not clarified, owing to the lack of the proper means capable to detect exactly the compositions of films. In this report, the convenient method using the electron-probe X-ray microanalyzer is explained in the case of determining the compositions of thin films of both system Ti-N and Zr-N, prepared by evaporation synthesis and or reactive sputtering. The error in this analysis is several per cent or less. Data of the film composition determined by this process have been adopted to feature each resistivity and temperature coefficient of resistivity-composition curves of Zr-N system and Ti-N system, respectively.
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