Deposition and characterization of titanium carbide thin films by magnetron sputtering using Ti and TiC targets.

In this study we present the effect of negative bias applied to substrate and the pressure on the properties of TiC films (i.e. structure, Raman spectroscopy, electrical resistivity and hardness). The elaboration of our films has been carried out by RF-Magnetron Sputtering, 13.56 MHz, using two targets: titanium carbide and pure titanium. The film depositions have been done on silicon, glass and steel substrates. The total pressure was 10-60 mTorr. The attention was given to study the influence of different parameters, pressure and substrate-bias, on the properties of TiC layers. In this paper, a comparison between the properties of TiC prepared using pure titanium target and titanium carbide target is made. The deposited layers were characterized by XRD analysis, nanoindentation, four probe technique and Raman spectroscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]