Physical characteristic of room-temperature deposited Ti thin films by RF magnetron sputtering at different RF power

Abstract

Ti thin films of various thicknesses were grown on glass substrates by using RF magnetron sputtering technique with sputtering power varied from 50W to 300W. The thickness of the thin films are measured using surface profiler KLA Tencor P-6 and it is observed that the thickness increased as the sputter power increased. Sputtering rate increases form 1.59nm/min to 8.77nm/min as the sputter power increases from 50W to 300W. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study the surface roughness and surface topography of the Ti thin films. The surface roughness is also proportional to the sputter RF power. FESEM analysis revealed that the particle size transform from dense agglomeration particle to bigger particle size with voids in between as the increase of RF power. The growth of the Ti on glass is in columnar structure and the RF power place a big role in order to modify a structure of a Ti thin film.