Formation of basal plane fiber-textured Ti2AlN films on amorphous substrates

The synthesis of fiber-textured Ti2AlN(0001) films on SiO2 was characterized by in-situ and ex-situ X-ray scattering and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. Ti2AlN was formed by solid-state reaction between sequentially deposited Ti and AlN layers. A deposition at 275 °C yields a Ti(0001) outof-plane orientation which is maintained for the following AlN(0001)/Ti(0001) layers. Annealing to 600 °C yields AlN decomposition and diffusion of Al and N into Ti, with consecutive transformation into Ti3AlN(111) and Ti2AlN(0001) plus AlN residuals. Despite preferred Ti2AlN(0001) out-ofplane orientation, the in-plane distribution is random, as expected from the self-organized pseudo-epitaxial growth.