Date of Award

5-18-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Department

Computing, Mathematics and Physics

First Advisor

Dr Niklas Hellgren

Abstract

Titanium diboride (TiB2) is a ceramic material that has attracted considerable interest due to its distinctive set of properties, such as high melting point and hardness, good thermal and electrical conductivity, as well as excellent corrosion resistance. In some applications, thin coatings of TiB2 may be desired, and one way to obtain such coatings is through the growth of thin films. One common growth technique is magnetron sputtering. However, when films are grown by magnetron-sputtering from a single TiB2 target, differences in preferred ejection angles and gasphase scattering yield B-rich TiBx films with x typically ranging from 2.5 to 3.5. In this research, we seek to investigate a potential solution to this problem by co-sputtering TiBx films from Ti and TiB2 targets. By varying the Ti target power from 0 to 100 W while keeping the TiB2 power constant at 250W, the Ti concentration could be independently controlled from π‘₯ β‰ˆ 1.4 to 2.8. Xray diffraction shows B-rich films have (100) and (101) TiB2 crystalline structure, and Ti-rich films are amorphous. Atomic force microscopy analysis shows smooth TiBx films (rms roughness between 0.96 nm and 2.0 nm) with lateral surface feature size between 23 nm and 45 nm.

Comments

This paper is provided open access to promote scholarship and is intended for personal study and not-for-profit educational use.

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