Abstract
Metallic Cr film coatings of $1.2{\mu}m$ thickness were prepared by DC magnetron sputter deposition method on c-plane sapphire substrates. The thin Cr films were ammoniated during horizontal furnace thermal annealing for 10-240 min in $NH_3$ gas flow conditions between 400 and $900^{\circ}C$. After annealing, changes in the crystal phase and chemical constituents of the films were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis. Nitridation of the metallic Cr films begins at $500^{\circ}C$ and with further increases in annealing temperature not only chromium nitrides ($Cr_2N$ and CrN) but also chromium oxide ($Cr_2O_3$) was detected. The oxygen in the films originated from contamination during the film formation. With further increase of temperature above $800^{\circ}C$, the nitrogen species were sufficiently supplied to the film's surface and transformed to the single-phase of CrN. However, the CrN phase was only available in a very small process window owing to the oxygen contamination during the sputter deposition. From the XPS analysis, the atomic concentration of oxygen in the as-deposited film was about 40 at% and decreased to the value of 15 at% with increase in annealing temperature up to $900^{\circ}C$, while the nitrogen concentration was increased to 42 at%.
