Specific Process Knowledge/Thin film deposition/Deposition of Tungsten Nitride: Difference between revisions

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 Tungsten nitride (WNₓ, commonly W₂N or δ‑WN) is a refractory ceramic that combines very high melting temperature, extreme hardness, chemical inertness, and good electrical conductivity in a composition‑tunable, CMOS‑compatible matrix.
-Thin films are produced chiefly by reactive magnetron sputtering—where nitrogen flow and substrate temperature set stoichiometry and phase—and by e‑beam evaporation of tungsten in a reactive nitrogen ambient, yielding dense layers with controllable resistivity and stress.
+Thin films are produced chiefly by reactive magnetron sputtering, where nitrogen flow and substrate temperature set stoichiometry and phase, yielding dense layers with controllable resistivity and stress.
 In semiconductor process flows, WNₓ acts as a robust Cu diffusion barrier/liner, hard mask, gate or contact material, and precision thin‑film resistor; its high absorption coefficient also makes it the standard absorber layer in EUV lithography photomasks and a candidate for x‑ray mask blanks.
 Optically, WN-based stacks offer durable, high-temperature plasmonic and thermally emissive coatings, mid-IR absorbers, and multilayer structures for soft-x-ray mirrors and synchrotron beamline optics, delivering stability far beyond noble metals under extreme photon flux.