Description
Metallic oxynitrides have attracted the attention of several researchers in the last decade
due to their versatile properties. Through the addition of a small amount of oxygen into a
transition metal nitride film, the material’s bonding states between ionic and covalent types
can be tailored, thus opening a wide range of electrical, optical, mechanical and tribological
responses. Among the oxynitrides, chromium oxynitride (CrN x O y ) has many interesting
applications in different technological fields. In the present work the electrical behavior of
CrN x O y thin films, deposited by DC reactive magnetron sputtering, were investigated and
correlated with their compositional and structural properties. The reactive gas flow, gas
pressure, and target potential were monitored during the deposition in order to control the
chemical composition, which depend strongly on reactive sputtering process. Depending on
the particular deposition parameters that were selected, it was possible to identify three types
of films with different growth conditions and physical properties. The electrical resistivity of the films, measured at room temperature, was found to depend strongly on the chemical
composition of the samples.
; Borges, Joel 
