Effect of annealing on electrical and optical properties of TiN thin films

TiN thin films were deposited are deposited by DC reactive magnetron sputtering. The effect of annealing on the electrical and optical properties of the thin films was investigated. Temperature dependences of the resistance R of the TiN films were measured within the temperature range T ÷ 295-420 K. There was established that all samples under investigation had n-type of conductivity. Based on the dependences (αhν)2 = f(hν), the presence of direct allowed interband optical transitions in the TiN thin films is established and the optical band gap values before and after annealing are determined. Annealing in nitrogen atmospheres led to an increase in the optical width of the band gap, which may be due to deviations from the stoichiometric composition of thin TiN films during heat treatment.