THICKNESS DEPENDENCE OF MICROSTRUCTURE IN THIN CHROMIUM FILMS

Shiva L. U, N.H.Ayachit, Udachan L. A, Santoshkumar M Sunagar

Abstract: The microstructure of thin films is often dictated by the environment during the film formation, and the substrate orientation with respect to the target, the nature of depositing the material, substrate material and film thickness. Therefore this paper deals with the thickness dependence of microstructure in thin chromium films. The experimental methods of preparation of chromium films is by thermal evaporation in vacuum. Thin chromium films in the thickness range 100-800 A0 have been grown on cleaned glass substrates at a rate of 5 A0 /s, under a pressure of ~10-6 Torr at room temperature of 220 C . After this the films were taken out of the vacuum chamber for structural, topographical and morphological analysis using Transmission Electron Microscope(TEM), Atomic force microscope(AFM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) studies. It is noticed that the chromium islands are surrounded by a thin skin of oxide, which indicates the behavior of discontinuous films. The island size and the impurity content are strongly depend on the deposition parameters

Keywords: Thin chromium films, Microstructure, Microscope.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2017.0613016