The crossover of preferred orientation in TiN film growth: A real time x-ray scattering study

The orientational crossover phenomena in a radio-frequency (rf) sputtering growth of TiN films were studied in a real-time synchrotron x-ray scattering experiment. Following the initial random nucleation and growth stage, the growth was dominated by the grains with the (002) planes aligned with the substrate surface. Surprisingly, at later stages, the grains with the (002) growth front tilted away from the surface by about 60° became dominant. The tilting of the growth front resulted in a faceted surface topology that was confirmed by an ex situ AFM study. Our x-ray results suggest that the crossover was driven by the competition between the surface and the strain energy