Abstract: The measurement of internal stresses in a PACVD TiN film proved experimentally to be difficult by a conventional X-ray diffraction technique.The linear relationship between 2θ and sin~2(?) could hardly be reached in some cases.Nevertheless.a good confirmation between the variation of FWHM-sin~2(?) and 20-sin~2(?) was revealed for every nonlinear forms.It followed that the effect of nondistributed micro-strains might exist in plasma assisted vapor deposited films,which usually have a strong crystal orientation,and the method of effectively separating macro-stress and micro-strain must be applied for the precise determination of internal stresses in PACVD films.

Key words: TiN film, internal stress, X-ray diffraction