Pressure instability and hysteresis effect in reactive sputtering of TiN

The paper presents investigation results on the effect of the pumping rate and the manner of nitrogen injection on the stability and hysteresis in TiN coatings processes. It was found that the critical value of the pumping rate depends on the manner in which the nitrogen is injected into the reaction chamber. The effect of hysteresis on the nitrogen partial pressure characteristic decays when the pumping rate of the reactive gas exceeds the critical rate. It was shown that a slight effect of hysteresis is likely to appear on the pressure–and–flow characteristic as result of the manner in which the experiment is carried out.