Study on the electrical and optical properties of vanadium doped TiN thin films prepared by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor

Highlights: • The vanadium doped titanium nitride films were deposited by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition on the glass substrate. • The TiN films were prepared at a relatively low temperature of 600 °C using APCVD, which is suitable for online coatings production. • The conductivity of TiN films were improved significantly by doping vanadium. • With the vanadium amount increasing, TiN films showed higher visible transmittance and higher reflectivity. -- Abstract: In this study, the vanadium doped titanium nitride films were deposited by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition with various vanadium chloride (VCl4) molar concentrations (0%, 2% and 15%). The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), four-point probe and ultraviolet–visible (UV/VIS) spectrophotometer. Combining the XPS and XRD results, we found that vanadium substituted titanium in TiN lattice. The SEM results showed relatively uniform granular grains surface, and typical columnar structure cross sectional. The film thickness did not change with the doping of vanadium, keeping a constant of 316 nm. With the vanadium amount increasing, TiN films showed higher visible transmittance and higher reflectivity both in near infrared and medium-far infrared region, indicating the improvement of solar control and low-emission properties