Heterostructures design for Hf-Nitride/V-Nitride system

Abstract The multilayered films were grown via reactive r.f. magnetron sputtering technique by systematically varying the bilayer period ( Λ ) and the bilayer number ( n ), while maintaining constant the total coating thickness (~2.4 μm) on silicon(100) substrates. The multilayers were characterized through high-angle X-ray diffraction (HA-XRD), low-angle X-ray diffraction (LA-XRD), HfN and VN layers were analyzed via X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and electron and transmission microscopy (TEM). The HA-XRD results showed preferential growth in the face-centered cubic (111) crystal structure for HfN/VN multilayer systems with the (111)[100] HfN //(200)[100] VN epitaxial relation. The maximum coherent assembly was observed with presence of satellite peaks.