Synthesis of TiC thin films by CVD from toluene and titanium tetrachloride with nickel as catalyst

Abstract

Titanium Carbide TiCx was deposited onto quartz substrates by the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method. TiCx thin films were obtained from titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) and toluene (C6H5CH3) as carbon source. Deposits were carried out in the range of substrate temperatures from 300 to 1100 °C, with a source gas molar ratio (C6H5CH3/TiCl4 + C6H5CH3 ) of 0.8. There was two deposit processes; the first was to carry out without nickel as catalyst and the second with nickel as catalyst. Results showed that the effect of nickel as catalyst is very relevant to obtain TiCx. TiC0.87 thin films, 0.5 mum thickness, were obtained for deposition temperatures above 900°C using nickel as catalyst. In this case a cubic structure, with a lattice parameter of 4.327 Å and a hardness of 2900 Vickers, was obtained at 1100(0)C. whilst for substrate temperatures between 300 to 900°C with nickel as catalyst amorphous carbon samples were obtained. For the samples prepared without the presence of the nickel as catalyst only C amorphous thin films were obtained for all deposit temperatures.

Titanium carbides; CVD; nickel catalyst; cubic structure; lattice parameter; microhardness

Synthesis of TiC thin films by CVD from toluene and titanium tetrachloride with nickel as catalyst

López-Romero, S.^I; Chávez-Ramírez, J.^II

^IInstituto de Investigaciones en Materiales. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Circuito Exterior s/n Ciudad Universitaria A. Postal 70-360 Coyoacán. C.P. 04510 México D.F. México Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone]. e-mail:[e-mail] ^IIFacultad de Química. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Circuito Exterior s/n Ciudad Universitaria A. Postal 70-360 Coyoacán. C.P. 04510 México D.F. México Tel. [phone] Fax. [phone]. e-mail: [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

Titanium Carbide TiC_x was deposited onto quartz substrates by the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method. TiC_x thin films were obtained from titanium tetrachloride (TiCl₄) and toluene (C₆H₅CH₃) as carbon source. Deposits were carried out in the range of substrate temperatures from 300 to 1100 °C, with a source gas molar ratio (C₆H₅CH₃/TiCl₄ + C₆H₅CH₃ ) of 0.8. There was two deposit processes; the first was to carry out without nickel as catalyst and the second with nickel as catalyst.

Results showed that the effect of nickel as catalyst is very relevant to obtain TiC_x. TiC_0.87 thin films, 0.5 mm thickness, were obtained for deposition temperatures above 900°C using nickel as catalyst. In this case a cubic structure, with a lattice parameter of 4.327 Å and a hardness of 2900 Vickers, was obtained at 1100⁰C. whilst for substrate temperatures between 300 to 900°C with nickel as catalyst amorphous carbon samples were obtained. For the samples prepared without the presence of the nickel as catalyst only C amorphous thin films were obtained for all deposit temperatures.

Keywords: Titanium carbides, CVD, nickel catalyst, cubic structure, lattice parameter, microhardness.

1 INTRODUCTION

Carbon and elements from the group IV form the transition metal carbides. From this group TiC_x, which assumes the NaCl crystal structure fcc, is a typical example [1]. TiC_x has a wide range of composition, from TiC_0.47 to TiC_1.0, where the complement 1–x corresponds to vacancies. Titanium carbide, TiC, is known as one of the hardest carbides with a hardness of 1900 kg/mm² [2] at TiC_0.8. Since it possesses a remarkable thermal and chemical stabilities, its melting temperature is 3067 ºC and it is not affected by acids or aqueous alkalis [3], titanium carbide is therefore of great industrial interest, i.e. as first-wall coating for fusion reactors and coating for tools and bearings [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. TiC also can be used as decorative thin films [9] There are several techniques to prepare titanium carbide coatings such as ion plating (IP), sputtering, plasma enjanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) [10], reactive ion beam-assisted electron beam –physical vapor deposition (RIBA, EB-PVD) [11], by laser igniting self-propagating high-temperature synthesis LISHS [12], by self—propagating high-temperature synthesis SHS [13]. Thermal CVD technique has shown to be an effective mean to obtain TiC high purity and defect free films [14, 15, 16].

Commercial processes involve chemical vapour deposition from hydrogen, methane and titanium tetrachloride at 1200 ºC [17].In this work TiC_x films were deposited on silica quartz by thermal CVD with and without nickel as catalyst. The relation between deposition conditions and the properties like hardness, structure and non–stoichiometry of TiC_x films, was investigated. In addition, preferred orientation, lattice parameter and deposition rate of the TiC_x films were also determined.

2 EXPERIMENTAL

The experimental system was a typical hot–wall reactor, figure 1. The reactor chamber consisted of a horizontal silica tube, 100 cm length and 2 cm diameter, placed into a furnace. TiCl₄ (l) (99.99%) and C₆H₅CH₃ (l) (99.99%) were used as source reactant materials and helium as carrier gas. TiCl₄ (g) was introduced into the silica tube by bubbling 200 sccm of helium (99.99%) through a glass flask of TiCl₄ (l) at 80 ºC. The C₆H₅CH₃ (g) was introduced into the silica tube by bubbling 40 sccm of helium (99.99%) through a glass flask of C₆H₅CH₃ (l) under a temperature of 30 ºC. The molar ratio of the reactants TiCl₄ (g) and C₆H₅CH₃ (g), m_c = [C₆H₅CH₃/ (TiCl₄ + C₆H₅CH₃ )], was 0.8. Nickel, which was used as catalyst, was placed in 1 cm² area sheets alternating with the quartz substrates, figure 1. Deposition temperatures (T_DEP) ranged from 300 °C to 1100 °C, with a deposition time of 45 min. Under similar conditions, deposits were carried out with and without nickel as catalyst. For crystalline samples, preferred orientation and lattice parameters were investigated by X–ray diffraction (XRD) using a Siemens D 500 diffractometer, CuKa radiation with l = 1.5406 Å. The thickness of the films was measured with a Dektak IIA equipment. The stoichiometry of the samples was determined by EDS with a Pentafet microprobe linked to a Leica–Cambridge Stereoscan 440 electron microscope. Microhardness measurements on the deposits were carried out with a Matsuzawa Seiki MXT30-UL ultra microhardness tester equipped with a Knoop indenter, suitable for measurement of extremely thin plates that are hard to be measured by the ordinary Vickers hardness testers. The deposition rate was calculated from a linear relationship between the thickness of deposits and deposition time.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Nickel as Catalyst

Nickel belongs to a transition metals family in which the elements are very efficient catalysts. Ni is widely used in the laboratory and industry in a umber of liquid–phase and gas–phase processes involving organic compounds [18]. Transition elements are distinguished of main group elements having partly filled d or f shells. The main transition group, or d– block elements have partially filled the d shell [19]. Nickel metal ion has, on average, 9.4 valence shell orbitals [20], –s, p_x, p_y, p_z, d_z², d_x²_{– y}², d_xy, d_xz, d_yz– to accommodate its valence electrons to form hybrid molecular orbitals bonded to other groups [18]. These valence orbitals inherent to nickel metal give the capacity to form both sigma (s) and pi (P) bonds with other moieties or ligands. This is an ability to form those bonds, one of them is the key factor imparting catalytic properties to the nickel metal and its complexes [19].

In this work, the reaction between titanium tetrachloride and toluene to obtain titanium carbide may be described as

(1)

The presence of HCl and gas chloride as reaction products were detected by conventional methods, however it is necessary to carry out a detailed study about the kinetic of the reaction to elucidate the role of the nickel as catalyst in this process. This work is in progress.

3.2 Structure and Film Composition

3.2.1 Without nickel

X–ray diffraction patterns of TiC thin films deposited on fused quartz substrates of 1 cm², at different temperatures, 300 ºC to 600ºC, without the nickel presence, are shown in figure 2. These patterns showed only broad curves, characteristic of graphitic amorphous carbon.

Figure 3 shows the X–ray diffraction patterns of TiC films, which were deposited at substrate temperatures of 700 ºC to 1100ºC without nickel as catalist. This patterns also showed the amorphous character of the TiC films.

3.2.2 With nickel

Figures 4 and 5 shows the X-ray diffractograms of the TiC films prepared at 300-600⁰C, 700-900⁰C temperature intervals’s with nickel as catalyst respectively, it is clearly observed that this TiC films are amorphous. X–ray diffraction patterns of the samples prepared at, 1000 and 1100 ºC, using nickel as catalyst during the deposit process, are showed in figure 6. XRD patterns exhibited intense peaks at 35.94, 42.71 and 60.45 2q degrees, for the two deposition temperatures. These strong reflections are associated to the fcc structure of the TiC phase [21]. The lattice parameter a of TiC was calculated from the d spacing using the most intense peaks. Results indicated that these carbides are cubic with a cell parameter a = 4.3270 Å, which matches well the standard JCPDS 6–1614, also similar to the value a = 4.3285 Å which was reported for the bulk standard [2], this a value is also consistent to that reported by Norton and Lewis [20].

The composition ratio x (x =C/Ti) obtained by EDS resulted to be approximately the same value for the two deposit temperatures, x = 0.87. This result is consistent with the study realized by Guinier [21] on TiC obtained by ARE; however these authors concluded that for high values of the molar fraction ( > 0.7) x and a are independent of deposition temperature, in this temperature range.

The crystallite size, which were estimated from the full width at half maximum peak using the Scherrer equation [22], was 230 nm.

3.3 Microhardness

With the use of the indenter Knoop it is possible to measure an indentation length min. of 0.01microm or 100nm. We have TiC films with thickness > 500nm, for that reason, we can be sure that the hardness measurements are of the TiC thin films. For the hardness measurements a load of 50g was used.

The microhardness of TiC film shows a marked dependence on the substrate temperature. Microhardness results of the crystalline TiC films which were deposited in the range temperature 1000°C–1100ºC are summarized in Table 1.

These results are similar to those which were reported by Bunshah' s group on ARE deposited films [21, 23].

4 CONCLUSIONS

Thermal CVD of toluene and titanium tetrachloride were carried out at deposition temperature range 300 –1100 ºC on quartz substrates using helium as carrier gas.

Deposits were obtained with and without nickel as catalyst. Below 900 ºC, X–ray diffraction revealed that the films prepared with nickel as catalyst are of amorphous carbon, whilst those films deposited betwen 300 to 1100 ºC without nickel as catalyst all exhibited amorphous carbon.

TiC_0.87 films with fcc structure and lattice parameter of 4.3270 Å were obtained using nickel as catalyst and substrate temperatures of 1000-1100 ºC. This films exhibited 2500 and 2900 microhardness vickers respectively.

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank L. Baños and J. Guzmán for their technical assistance.

6 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Received on: 25/08/06 Accepted on: 29/06/07

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  07 Dec 2007
• Date of issue
  2007

History

• Accepted
  29 June 2007
• Received
  25 Aug 2006