Metal Nitride Coating Cleans Itself When Heated, Solving a Major Lab Problem
Researchers discovered that titanium nitride and similar industrial coatings automatically shed surface contamination when heated in a vacuum, eliminating the need for destructive chemical scrubbing during analysis. The finding could accelerate materials research and improve quality control in semiconductor and coating manufacturing by enabling faster, more accurate testing without damaging samples.
Originaltitel: In-situ observation of self-cleansing phenomena during ultra-high vacuum anneal of transition metal nitride thin films: Prospects for non-destructive photoelectron spectroscopy
<p>Self-cleansing of transition metal nitrides is discovered to take place during ultra-high vacuum annealing of TiN, NbN, and VN thin films. Native oxide layers from air exposure disappear after isothermal anneal at 1000 degrees C. Also, for TiN, the Ti 2p and N 1s X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) recorded after the anneal are identical to those obtained from in-situ grown and analyzed epitaxial TiN(001). These unexpected effects are explained by oxide decomposition in combination with N-replenishing of the nitride during recrystallization. The finding opens up new possibilities for true bonding assignments through non-destructive XPS analyses, thus avoiding artefacts from Ar etching. (C) 2016 Author(s).</p>