Tantalum silicide nitride

Inorganic antireflection coatings are typically deposited by sputtering, and as opposed to organic antireflection coatings, may in some cases be left in the finished device. Typical inorganic antireflection coatings include silicon oxynitride, amorphous silicon, tantalum silicide, titanium nitride, etc. 

For attenuated phase shift lithography, light blocking materials, which have phase shifting characteristic, such as molybdenum silicide (MoSi), aluminum/aluminum nitride cermet, understoichiometric silicon nitride, tantalum silicon oxide composite, are used. All these materials record 4 15 % transmission at UV light... 

Note that the tantalum container is desirable because most rare-earth elements react with glass or ceramic containers to form very stable trivalent oxides, silicides, borides, carbides, nitrides, etc. Because Ta is sensitive to oxidation at reaction temperature, the metal container was fused into an evacuated silica tube. The tube was placed upright into a tube furnace and heated to 1073 K within 24 h. After a reaction time of one day the furnace was cooled by 17 K/h. The resulting raw product was a bright yellow powder. 

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