Increased upper critical field for nanocrystalline MoN thin films deposited on AlN buffered substrates at ambient temperature

Molybdenum nitride (MoN) thin films have been deposited using reactive DC magnetron sputtering on aluminum nitride buffered oxidized silicon substrates at ambient temperature. GIXRD of aluminum nitride (AlN) deposited under similar conditions has revealed the formation of wurtzite phase AlN. GIXRD characterization of molybdenum thin films deposited on AlN buffered oxidized silicon substrates has indicated the formation of nanocrystalline MoN thin films. The electrical resistivity measurements indicate MoN thin films have a superconducting transition temperature of ~8 K. The minimum transition width of the MoN thin film is 0.05 K at 0 T. The inferred upper critical field Bc2(0) for these nanocrystalline MoN thin films obtained by fitting the temperature dependence of critical field with Werthamer, Helfand and Hohenberg theory lies in the range of 17–18 T which is the highest reported in literature for MoN thin films.