Structural and magnetic properties of Co-N thin films deposited using magnetron sputtering at 523 K

Abstract

In this work, we studied cobalt nitride (Co-N) thin films deposited using a dc magnetron sputtering method at a substrate temperature (\Ts) of 523\,K. We find that independent of the reactive gas flow (\pn) used during sputtering, the phases of Co-N formed at this temperature seems to be identical having N \pat~$\sim$5. This is contrary to Co-N phases formed at lower \Ts. For \Ts$\sim$300\,K, an evolution of Co-N phases starting from Co(N)$\rightarrow$\tcn$\rightarrow$Co$_3$N$\rightarrow$CoN can be seen as \pn increases to 100\p, whereas when the substrate temperature increases to 523\,K, the phase formed is a mixture of Co and \tcn, independent of the {\pn} used during sputtering. We used x-ray diffraction (XRD) to probe long range ordering, x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) at Co absorption edge for the local structure, Magneto-optical Kerr e ffect (MOKE) and polarized neutron reflectivity (PNR) to measure the magnetization of samples. Quantification of N \pat~was done using secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). Measurements suggest that the magnetic moment of Co-N samples deposited at 523\,K is slightly higher than the bulk Co moment and does not get affected with the \pn~used for reactive sputtering. Our results provide an important insight about the phase formation of Co-N thin films which is discussed in this work.