Fabricating Metallic–Dielectric Zirconium Nitride Thin Films for Photoelectric Conversion

Metals and dielectrics are essential components in photoelectric conversions and plasmonics. In these applications, basically any material with negative and positive permittivities can be used as metals and dielectrics, respectively. Although there are many possible combinations of metallic and dielectric materials, they usually consist of different elements, making it challenging to create metal–dielectric interfaces from materials with identical elements. In this study, metallic and dielectric zirconium nitride (Zr–N) are fabricated by controlling the flow rates of argon and nitrogen. Characterization by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction reveals that the metallic and dielectric phases are ZrN and Zr3N4, respectively. The photoresponse is demonstrated by constructing a metal–insulator–metal structure using metallic and dielectric Zr–N thin films. Fabricating plasmonic nanostructures in Zr–N thin films can potentially improve the photoresponse. Additionally, other transition metal nitrides are also candidates for realizing metallic and dielectric components with the same constituent elements.