Investigation of the effect of multiple oxidation and ion sputtering on the formation of inhomogeneous oxide layers on the surface of an ultrathin metal film

Controlled formation of ultrathin films allows to obtain a material suitable for the creation of high-tech devices, such as a memristor. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate the method of obtaining the above-mentioned films. А certain structure was formed (a combination of layers of suboxides and higher oxide) on the oxidized metal surface using multi-stage ion sputtering and oxidation with the control of the layered profile by the XPS method. The influence of various characteristics or parameters (duration of atmospheric oxidation, ion beam energy) on the composition of the surface oxide layers of niobium thin films was studied. The process of sputtering metal oxide films with argon ions in the TRIM program is modeled. The study shows that knowledge of the chemical and phase composition, the layered profile of multilayer and multicomponent films, as well as their changes depending on various external factors, allows us to improve the technology of obtaining such films.