Effects of interfacial energy and annealing on the microstructure of NiTe₂ thin films on glass substrate

A specific sputtering technique and an ex situ annealing process increased both the grain size of NiTe₂ thin films and the number of grains with basal planes parallel to the substrate. These properties are important when utilising NiTe₂ as transparent electrodes, because larger grains lower the electrical resistivity. In addition, grains arranged in specific directions are helpful for exfoliation in order to reduce their thicknesses. The NiTe₂ films fabricated by the compound sputtering technique exhibited a lower interfacial energy between the film and the glass substrate as compared to those prepared by co-sputtering. The lowered interfacial energy resulted in larger grains in the compound-sputtered films as compared to those in the co-sputtered films. Ex situ annealing enabled a further increase in the grain size from 63.4 nm to 140 nm.