Schottky contacts of TiNxthin films onn‐type Si(100) were fabricated by reactive magnetron sputtering at room temperature.Insituspectroscopic ellipsometry was used to determine the stoichiometry of the TiNxfilms. Dark forward bias current–voltage as well as dark reverse bias capacitance–voltage techniques was used to characterize the diodes in the temperature range from 77 to 300 K. The electrical characteristics of the contacts (i.e., barrier height, ideality factor, and leakage current) as well as the inhomogeneity of the spatial distribution of the barrier heights at the interface are improved drastically for overstoichiometric TiNxfilms obtained by using low negative bias voltage and/or high N2flow rates during the TiNxdeposition. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.