Preferentially Oriented Crystal Growth in Dynamic Mixing Process–An Approach by Monte Carlo Simulation–

Abstract

Titanium nitride films produced by a dynamic mixing method have a preferential crystallographic orientation, and the orientation varies with the arrival ratio of the depositing elements. For this study, we performed a Monte Carlo simulation of the damaging process caused by nitrogen ion irradiation onto (111) and (100) planes of a TiN single crystal. The simulation predicts that in (100)TiN, N + penetrates through the open channel, losing its kinetic energy mainly by electronic stopping, while N + loses its kinetic energy mainly by nuclear stopping in (111)TiN, leading the crystal to be amorphous. The contribution of this dynamic mixing process to the development of preferred orientation is discussed.