Effect of Rapid Thermal Annealing on the Superconductivity of ALD-Grown TiN thin films
Abstract
Titanium nitride (TiN) is a promising superconducting material for scalable quantum technologies owing to its tunable kinetic inductance and compatibility with CMOS thin-film processing. However, the superconducting performance of atomic-layer-deposited TiN can be degraded by oxygen incorporation, off-stoichiometry, and crystallographic disorder. In this work, we investigate rapid thermal annealing (RTA) in high-purity nitrogen as a post-deposition strategy to improve polycrystalline TiN films grown by RF-biased plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition. Grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction reveals reduced peak broadening, a smaller lattice parameter, and a stronger (111) preferred orientation with increasing annealing temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profiling shows reduced oxygen-related bonding and a shift toward a Ti--N-dominated chemical environment after annealing. These structural and chemical changes result in a 25% increase in the superconducting transition temperature and a significant narrowing of the transition width. Annealing also reduced the sheet resistance and the estimated sheet kinetic inductance, increased the residual resistance ratio, and improved the magnetic-field tolerance. Together, the structural, chemical, and transport results are consistent with reduced material disorder and improved superconducting uniformity. Because RTA is a relatively low thermal budget and is a semiconductor fabrication compatible process, it offers a practical route to improve the quality of ALD-grown TiN for superconducting applications.
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BibTeX
@misc{sadirkhanov2026effect,
title = {{Effect of Rapid Thermal Annealing on the Superconductivity of ALD-Grown TiN thin films}},
author = {Z. Sadirkhanov and A. Tuigynbek and M. Surendran and A. Jakyp and L. Akisheva and A. T. Hammack and A. B. Tikhonov and A. Kemelbay},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.00424},
eprint = {2611.00424},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.00424},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Effect of Rapid Thermal Annealing on the Superconductivity of ALD-Grown TiN thin films
AU - Z. Sadirkhanov
AU - A. Tuigynbek
AU - M. Surendran
AU - A. Jakyp
AU - L. Akisheva
AU - A. T. Hammack
AU - A. B. Tikhonov
AU - A. Kemelbay
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.00424
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.00424
AB - Titanium nitride (TiN) is a promising superconducting material for scalable quantum technologies owing to its tunable kinetic inductance and compatibility with CMOS thin-film processing. However, the superconducting performance of atomic-layer-deposited TiN can be degraded by oxygen incorporation, off-stoichiometry, and crystallographic disorder. In this work, we investigate rapid thermal annealing (RTA) in high-purity nitrogen as a post-deposition strategy to improve polycrystalline TiN films grown by RF-biased plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition. Grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction reveals reduced peak broadening, a smaller lattice parameter, and a stronger (111) preferred orientation with increasing annealing temperature. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profiling shows reduced oxygen-related bonding and a shift toward a Ti--N-dominated chemical environment after annealing. These structural and chemical changes result in a 25% increase in the superconducting transition temperature and a significant narrowing of the transition width. Annealing also reduced the sheet resistance and the estimated sheet kinetic inductance, increased the residual resistance ratio, and improved the magnetic-field tolerance. Together, the structural, chemical, and transport results are consistent with reduced material disorder and improved superconducting uniformity. Because RTA is a relatively low thermal budget and is a semiconductor fabrication compatible process, it offers a practical route to improve the quality of ALD-grown TiN for superconducting applications.
ER -