Epitaxial growth of high quality TiN thin film on Si by laser molecular beam epitaxy

TiN thin films have been successfully epitaxially grown on Si substrates by laser molecular-beam epitaxy using the two-step method. The thin film has a smooth surface with a root-mean-square roughness of 0.842 nm over a 10 μm × 10 μm area. Hall measurement shows that the resistivity of the TiN film is 3.6 × 10^-5 Ω·cm and the mobility is up to 583.0 cm²/V·S at room temperature, which implies that TiN thin film is an excellent electrode material. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) θ-2θ scan result together with the very high mobility show that the TiN film has high quality. The result that SrTiO₃ thin film can be subseguently epitaxially grown on TiN/Si substrate indicates that the TiN thin film on Si substrate not only has good thermal stability, but also can be used as buffers or bottom electrode for epitaxial growth of other thin films or multilayer films.