Electrical resistivity of vacuum-arc-deposited platinum thin films

Abstract We report on our investigations of the electrical resistivity of very thin platinum films, with thickness in the range from 2.6 to 19 nm, formed using a filtered vacuum arc plasma deposition method. We find that the resistivity of these films can be well described by a grain-boundary scattering model, especially for thickness less than ∼5 nm. We also find that the grain size, and consequently the resistivity of the deposited film, is a function of the ion deposition energy, with measured grain size varying from ∼8 nm for ion deposition energy of 100 eV up to ∼11 nm at 2.2 keV.